Runemaker, page 5
He couldn’t remember much anymore. All he knew was the room was empty save for the two of them and the sky outside was dark and dripping. His thoughts were finally congealing enough to make sense. A sort of sense, at least.
“How you feeling?” Kianna asked.
“Like my insides are a freezer,” Aidan muttered. He curled in tighter to himself, inched closer to the heat. He couldn’t feel it. “Can’t you make it any warmer in here?”
“It’s already an oven, love.”
He looked at her, then—really looked—and saw that she was in a T-shirt and jeans. Fresh bandages covered her arms, hiding whatever scars the Inquisition had left her with. Memories sparked in his brain.
Jeremiah.
The Dark Lady.
The shard. The shard.
“He was working for Her,” Aidan whispered.
“Hmm?”
“Brother Jeremiah. He was working for the Dark Lady.”
“I knew I hated organized religion for a reason.” She paused. “What happened in there, Aidan?”
Aidan closed his eyes. Not out of shame, but from the wave of pain that ricocheted through his body, the shuddering cold.
He told her.
He kept out the incriminating details. Told her he’d gone back in for vengeance, and not for a shard both the Dark Lady and one of the Kin demanded he retrieve for them. He told her Brother Jeremiah had kept it, had said it held great power, that it was the stone used to drain Calum and turn him into an incubus. Aidan said he stole it, used it to kill Jeremiah and level London.
He didn’t tell her the shard spoke to him. Didn’t tell her he’d read the runes in the Dark Lady’s tongue. He didn’t tell her he wasn’t certain which side he was on anymore—the living, or the undead. He knew she would kill him for any of those things.
After being so close to death, he found he quite liked being alive, even if it sucked.
Frankly, he was impressed that he was able to string a sentence together, let alone lie through his teeth. His remaining teeth.
The thought made him look down to his hand, to the nubs of his ring and pinkie fingers. The wounds had been cauterized. Was that his doing, or Jeremiah’s? Jeremiah had left the knuckle tattoos. How generous.
“Where are they?” he asked.
Kianna shrugged. “Still sleeping.”
“And Tenn?”
Another shrug. “Left a few minutes ago. I try not to ask. The less they think I’m a friend, the less drama I have to put up with. I heard them talking, though. There’s a Guild nearby. They want us to go. Think maybe it will help you.”
Aidan laughed.
“They can’t.”
“I know. But it’s the only shot we have.”
The way she said it...it was a hammer to the final nail in his coffin. If she thought he was hopeless, he was.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked.
Aidan shook his head. “I don’t know. I channeled Calum’s power. And I think it burned me up. I’m dying.”
“You keep on saying that and I’m going to force you to wear heavy eyeliner and write some poems about it.”
He tried to push himself to sitting. He still shook when he was upright, but at least he didn’t fall over.
“How did you survive?” he asked.
“Takes more than a bit of fireworks to kill me, love. I bolted the moment you went back inside. When the bomb went off, I jumped in the Thames and held my breath until the fire stopped. Probably helped that I had this.”
She pulled a gold chain from her neck, revealing an amulet in the shape of the cross branded on Aidan’s arm. Aidan hissed an inhale as the welt on his wrist throbbed angrily.
“Why do you have that?”
“Figured it couldn’t hurt. Everyone in the Church wore one, and it cut you off from burning the place down, so I did the math—how else were they surviving against necromancers and Hunters if they could be killed with magic? I figured this was the key.” She slid the necklace back under her shirt. “Don’t think your friend was so lucky.”
“Friend?”
“Lukas. Your cell mate. He took off in the other direction the moment you went inside. Doubt he survived the blaze.”
Aidan grunted. Lukas was unimportant. Everything but saving himself was unimportant. He shivered. Moved closer to the fire.
“Any closer and you’re going to catch,” Kianna warned.
“Better that than freeze.”
Another shudder broke through him. He just needed to ride this out. Ride this out and he would get better, and everything would go back to normal. Ride this out, and get Tenn out of the way. Before Tenn could kill him. Before he could try to steal Aidan’s thunder.
“We can’t trust them,” Aidan said.
“No shit. A group of Hunters shows up right after you blow up London, saying they’re here to help? Please. I don’t buy it. Whatever they’re doing here, it has nothing to do with helping. Probably spies or something from a Guild, here to see how you did it. We’ll shake them soon. After we get you fixed up, we’ll sneak out and head to the mainland. Just like we’d planned.”
Aidan wasn’t about to correct her. Not about to tell her that he’d been dreaming about Tenn for weeks. So long as she viewed them as the enemy, it didn’t really matter why.
He nodded, staring into the fire. Even this close to the heat, he couldn’t feel a lick of warmth. Not only from the Church’s brand, but from the sudden numbness spreading through his veins.
“They’re going to come after me.” He didn’t say whom. It didn’t matter. Word would spread. He had killed Calum. He had destroyed London and the Church’s hold here. If that didn’t paint a target on his back, nothing would. The Kin would want to kill him, and without Tomás’s help or Fire’s strength, he didn’t stand a chance. It wasn’t the thought of dying that scared him—it was the thought that Tenn would kill the Kin instead and steal Aidan’s victory. Aidan’s immortality. “We’re going to be hunted.”
“I know. Saves us the hassle.”
“I don’t have any magic. Not anymore.”
He looked down at his arm. At the cauterized wounds, at the throbbing welt. At the runes he couldn’t understand. If only they were like the runes on the shard. Maybe then he could change them. Maybe he could fix them. He could almost hear the Dark Lady’s whispers, the language that would alter the runes, the way to make them whole. Almost, but not quite within his grasp...
“I won’t kick you while you’re down,” Kianna said, pulling him from his thoughts. “But if I was the type, this would be the perfect time to say I told you so.”
“I hate you.”
She smiled.
“Good. There’s hope for you yet.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
TENN
Tenn hadn’t slept, and he didn’t feel like lying around waiting for the rest to wake. So he’d left. And wandered. Up and down the abandoned streets, the rain now a faint mist around him, the sky gray and tinged with pink from the rising sun and burning Guild. He kept his eyes open for the fox, though now he wasn’t so certain it wasn’t just a figment of his imagination.
He never saw a trace of it.
Years ago, way before the Resurrection, he’d dreamed of visiting the UK. Doing all the touristy things in London like riding the Eye or getting afternoon tea. Now, here he was, and even though the city had been ruined, it still held on to its old-world charm—the long tenement flats stretching along winding roads, the bitter tang of stone and moss, the dreary sky. His gut twisted at the posters still hanging in shop windows, at seeing pound signs and British verbiage. It wasn’t just Water resonating with the pain of this place, but the hurt of knowing an entire city—no, an entire culture—was lost to him. Forever.
If he’d been fast enough, if he’d come here before the Resurrection, he might have had a chance to know what this city was like. But this was just another future denied to him. Which made him wonder... Aidan’s dialect hinted at Scottish, but he was definitely American. What was he doing here?
Just that thought made a dozen other questions about Aidan’s shrouded past whirl through his mind. Maybe, someday, he’d be able to ask. If Aidan ever trusted him.
If they made it out alive.
After a few hours, Tenn couldn’t delay the inevitable any longer. It was time to face the team. To look Jarrett in the eye. It was time to move out, before the army moved in.
He turned to go and froze.
Tomás lounged on the hood of a car, one leg bent and the other draped over the grille, elbows propping his torso up. Rain slicked across his olive chest, made his tight jeans cling and his hair twine over his chiseled, scruffy jaw.
Despite the cold and the anger and the fear, the sight of him made Tenn’s chest burn.
“What are you doing here? And what have you done to Aidan?”
Tomás grinned.
“And here I thought you were the one following me?”
Tenn blinked, and Tomás was behind him, pressed tight to his back, one hand on Tenn’s neck and the other pressed on his chest. “Do you fear the boy has come between us? Or perhaps you wish to be between me and the boy?” He leaned in, his breath hot against Tenn’s ear. “I know what lies within that throbbing heart of yours, Tenn. I know you want him, just as you wonder if you should destroy him. Just as you wonder if it is right for you to desire, when you already have. Even though that little hungry voice within you tells you to desire everything.”
Tenn struggled, but Tomás’s grip was tight. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to.
And Tomás was right—Tenn didn’t want to. There was something about being in Tomás’s orbit, in his radiant heat, that he found he’d actually...missed.
What the hell did that make him?
He felt Tomás smile against the back of his neck, as if the Kin knew every secret in Tenn’s dark mind.
A moment later, Tomás was once more a few feet in front of him, the barest tinge of Air magic in the ether between them. Tenn struggled not to collapse.
“As for the boy, and what I’ve done to him...” Tomás shook his head and smiled. “Sadly, I have done not near enough. He is willful. As I’m sure you will find out.”
“He’s dying. Because of this.” Tenn pointed to the smoldering horizon. “Because of you.”
“I am honored,” Tomás said, bowing deep. “But I am afraid it was all the boy and his own—to quote the British—cock-up that brought this devastation about.” Tomás’s mocking smile turned serious. “Trust me, I had no hand in this. The boy failed me. Unlike you.”
“What are you talking about?” Tenn asked. “No riddles. I followed you over here and found him instead.”
“I thought he would prove useful. I was wrong.”
“But why? You abandoned me. For him.”
The moment the words left his mouth, he hated himself. Not because it sounded needy, but because it was true.
He hated that Tomás had left him alone the last few weeks. And he hated himself more for wanting the enemy more than he wanted his own partner.
“He is jealous,” Tomás purred. “He thinks I have found another.”
“I’m not...”
But Tomás just shook his head, dismissing the lie before it fell from Tenn’s lips.
“Don’t worry, my prince,” he whispered. “I will always have a dark spot in my heart for you.”
Tenn wondered if Tomás was alluding to the brand he’d placed on his heart, or some deeper desire. He also knew it was a lie—Howls didn’t love. This was all just another incubus ruse, a way to snare his heart and cloud his judgment.
The trouble was, it worked.
“What have you been doing?” Tenn asked, trying to remain on the offensive. “Why did you go after Aidan?”
“I was helping. As I always do. Aidan wanted glory. I told him how to get it. I helped him defeat my brother Calum, just as I directed him to an object of immeasurable power that I demanded in exchange for my assistance. And rather than bring it to me, he used it. He did that.” A gesture to the horizon, a hint of rage in his otherwise-calm features. “The boy betrayed me, and I do not take kindly to betrayal.”
“What was it? What was the object?”
“The shard that completed Calum’s turning. Calum was not like the rest of us. We, who were born of living hosts. My mistress prepared Calum’s body before his death. And when he died, she used special runes and stones to bring him back to life. To the well-trained eye, the shard I sought contained the secrets to his resurrection.”
Tenn swallowed.
He’d heard stories of the Dark Lady’s abilities. But he’d always assumed they were just that—stories. To have Tomás confirm the darkest one to be true, that she had learned how to raise the dead...
“Why did you want it?” Tenn asked. “You can’t use runes. No Howl can. So why did you need it? Who did you want to bring back?”
“You will find out soon enough. If you live until then.”
Another blink, and he was so close, Tenn could see nothing but the copper flecks in the Kin’s hazel eyes. Tenn wanted to burn in the incubus’s heat, to rip off Tomás’s remaining clothes and do to him what he could never do to Jarrett.
“My siblings know the two of you are here. Together. They know what you both have done. They will be here soon. I suggest you leave the boy and flee. Let him burn on his own pyre, or risk dying in his flame.”
“How would they know?” Tenn asked, his breath raspy with want. “How would they know I’m here?”
Tomás smiled.
“You’ve learned, little mouse. They know you are here because I have told them. I cannot pretend to have forgiven you for this.” He reached out and caressed Tenn’s heart with a burning, frozen finger. “And I look forward to seeing the coming game. It will be glorious.”
The way he said the last word made Tenn shiver and swell at the same time.
“Run while you can,” Tomás said, his lips brushing Tenn’s. “I would hate for our game to end so early. You have proven you can read the language of the dead gods. Perhaps you will still be useful to us.”
“Us?”
Tomás leaned in and pressed his lips to Tenn’s. Fire exploded in Tenn’s vision. Fire, and a passion he had never felt before. He could see it, in Tomás’s kiss—the flames of the world, the crowds of screaming fans knelt in homage, and Tomás’s perfect body twined against his. Above it all, with burning red eyes, the shadow of the Dark Lady stretched and devoured.
When Tomás pulled away, Tenn wondered if he would ever feel so warm, so divine, again.
“She still waits,” Tomás whispered. “But she will not wait long, my prince. Her voice grows louder, and soon, it will remake the world.”
Then, with a breath of magic, Tomás was gone.
CHAPTER NINE
AIDAN
Aidan needed to get the fuck out of here.
It felt like his bones were itching even as they burned and froze. Kianna sat beside him, idly talking to some pasty girl named Dreya. Vaguely, Aidan wondered if they were going to shag before this mission was through—Kianna only talked to two types of people: him, and the select few she wanted to see naked. It made his gut burn. Not because he was jealous, not because he didn’t want her to have her fun, but because he was dying, and no one in this godforsaken room seemed to care.
Not Kianna.
Not Dreya.
Not the silent dark-skinned boy brooding in the corner.
And definitely not the stuck-up blond prick pacing back and forth with his sword unsheathed like he was showing off his goddamned dick.
The door opened, and in stepped Tenn.
“Fucking great,” Aidan muttered to himself. Loud enough for the room to hear, sure. But screw them.
Tenn paused in the doorway and looked him over. Aidan watched his expression like a hawk. He knew Tenn’s secret. Tenn pretended to be all altruistic and caring but he was a murderer, just like Aidan. Tenn killed Leanna. He’d been shagging Tomás. And maybe that was why Aidan was pissed that Kianna was flirting with a girl and everyone else was content to be about their own business.
He felt abandoned.
And he didn’t have any sort of flame to burn that weakness away.
“About time,” the blond dude said. Jarrett. Dreya had tried introducing everyone. Blondie was Jarrett and the other dude was her brother, Devon, apparently twins, though how the hell they were related when they were night and day was beyond him. Too much meddling with magic, probably.
Aidan snorted. If only Kianna knew he was blaming someone else for using too much magic.
Tenn looked between Jarrett and Aidan and oh, Aidan knew that look. Tenn and Jarrett were lovers, and they were having a fight. He knew that look because that was the look he and Trevor had shared more often than not. Well, before he burned Trevor to the ground.
His snort became a laugh, and before he knew it he had fallen back on the ground and pain was lancing up his side and he didn’t know if he was laughing or crying or if it made a difference in the cold. Everything was so. Damn. Cold.
“Is he okay?” Aidan heard Tenn ask.
“The feck does it look like?” Kianna replied.
Aidan felt her hand on his shoulder. Trying to calm him down. Her grip was like ice. Like crushing ice.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stop falling apart. Tried to take deep breaths because that’s what you were supposed to do. Tried to find calm. Instead, in the darkness behind his eyes, in the shadows between the icebergs of his blood, he heard his mother, screaming out for help. Just as another voice promised he still could help her, if only he spoke the right words, if only he gave in...
