“He never speaks of it,” Cinq said. “But I know he doesn’t blame you for it. None of us do. We all carry scars of the past, but now most of us are quite happy.”
“How can you be, after what my father did to you?”
“We chose to be, sister,” Cinq said gently. “When I’m not shuffling funds for my clients, my wife and I grow roses. Vingt likes to scream at crowded arenas and chase skirts all over the world. Neuf is a pediatrician in Hamburg.” He nodded at the startled look she gave him. “Oh, yes. I’ve visited his clinic. His little patients adore him.”
Simone couldn’t forgive her father for the heartless brutality he had inflicted, but knowing what he had done for her brothers made the burden of his legacy a little easier for her to bear. At least they had normal lives. “I’m glad you’ve given up fighting.”
“We haven’t.” His expression grew wry. “We maintain our own workout routines at home, but all of us meet twice a year to train together as a garrison.”
“You’re not a garrison. You’re my family.” She pressed her lips together and blinked. “I can’t believe you’re all still alive. I’ve missed you so much.”
He came over and put his arm around her shoulders. “Now you should tell me the rest.”
“Pájaro stole the Scroll of Falkonera from my father’s château.” She gave him a brief description of the events that had led to her coming to Jamaica before she added, “He had the scroll in his possession until he left France yesterday. I think he must have handled it several times.”
Cinq, who had witnessed what had happened to one of the handlers who had tried to steal the scroll, shook his head. “You don’t have to fight him, Quatorze. From what Neuf described, he’s already dying.”
“I’m not here to fight Pájaro.” She turned and sorted through one of the drawers until she produced a pair of scissors. “I came just as you did. Because in exchange for my freedom, I swore that I would.”
“I know we are here to defend you,” Cinq said. “What did he demand of you?”
“I promised him that Helada would never die,” she said as she handed him the scissors. “Now, if you would, brother, please cut off my hair.”
Chapter 20
K
orvel got out of the car and walked up to the gates of Winter Cove. He could smell Simone in the air everywhere here, as if the tropics had made her bloom. He tried the intercom first, and then opened the gates by wrenching them apart and pushing them aside. “She’s close,” Nicola told him when he got back into the car. “So are a bunch of other humans, and something that feels like the scroll.”
“You are not to touch anything,” Gabriel told her. “In fact, you are to stay in the car. With the doors locked.”
“In case you forgot”—she turned around and braced her arms on the top of the seat—“you need me to find her. No, Captain,” she said to Korvel. “Not the house. Other way. She’s near the water.”
Korvel drove as far as he could in the car, and then stopped it when they reached an impassible grove of palm trees interlaced with enormous backlit cobwebs. Beyond the glinting threads he could see shadows moving and torches burning.
Nicola leaned forward. “Holy cow. Some of those webs are like ten feet tall.”
“You should remain in the car,” Korvel said as he and Gabriel got out. “My lord, I will scout ahead.”
“We work together, Captain.” Gabriel eyed his sygkenis as she joined them. “What happened to your aversion to spiders?”
“I got over it. Plus, three Kyn are better than two, baby.” She focused on the area ahead of them. “About thirty guys are hiding in the trees and the brush. There’s another group of humans headed our way, maybe a dozen, but they won’t be here for a while. They’re on foot, about four miles west.”
Korvel assessed their options. “We’ll have to go around.”
“Wait.” Gabriel’s eyes began to glow. “I can clear out the mortals in the grove.”
“And who’s going to help you do that?” Nicola eyed the webs overhead. “The spiders?”
“No.” He smiled a little. “The sand fleas.”
Korvel watched as the speck-size insects began hopping up through the grass toward the hidden men. “They are harmless.”
“Yeah, but their bites itch like a bad Brazilian wax,” Nicola told him.
Within a few seconds men began dancing in and out of the trees, scratching at their arms and legs. Korvel advanced along with Gabriel as the Kyn lord created an open corridor through the swarming fleas, and made it through the grove unscathed.
Down on the beach a woman walked toward the deep pit that had been excavated in the sand. At first Korvel didn’t recognize her with her hair shorn so close to her scalp, but as she stepped into the torchlight he saw the serene, pale features and the tilt of her eyes.
“Simone.”
Gabriel caught his arm as Korvel surged forward. “The men are coming out of the grove. They are heavily armed, and they are surrounding her.”
“I will go to defend her back,” he told Gabriel. “Will you and your lady flank me?”
“Um, I think that’s what they’re doing, big guy.” Nicola nodded toward the beach. “Look.”
The men who came up around and behind Simone fell into formation, daggers ready. As for his lady, she drew two fighting knives as she strode forward toward the pit.
“Please,” a frightened voice called from inside. “My legs are broken. Don’t hurt me.”
Machine-gun fire erupted as a front-loader came roaring out of the brush, Pájaro with one hand on the controls and the other firing on Simone and her defenders. As the men were cut down, Simone dived into the pit.
Korvel started running as soon as he heard the first shot, but something came flipping through the air and slammed into his knees, throwing him to the ground.
As he struggled to his feet, Korvel saw Pájaro lower the front-loader’s shovel and push the pile of excavated sand back into the pit, burying Simone and the man inside.
The roar of outrage rising inside Korvel never made it past his lips; something came over him and held him, trapping him in his own body like an insect caught in amber. As Gabriel and Nicola appeared beside them, they also stopped moving.
You must not interfere.
Korvel saw a distorted shadow step between him and the beach, and sensed that the power paralyzing him was coming from it. He fought wildly to free himself so he could attack, but while he could think, his body had been turned into stone. Release me.
In due time. As the shadow moved closer, the presence in Korvel’s mind picked through his thoughts until it retrieved a memory of his mother shrieking at him. Your sire was not among the men who took her, warrior. She gave herself willingly to another slave.
Korvel saw a memory not his own: that of his mother in rags, coupling with a large, naked, fair-haired man. Both wore slave collars. I don’t care what that bitch did. Get out of my head.
So that you may go to your woman and rescue her again? A rusty chuckle echoed inside his skull. I cannot permit that. This time she must save herself.
Simone is mortal. He buried her alive. She will die.
Yes, warrior, she will, the ancient voice agreed, and the shadowy figure retreated into the woods. She must.
Simone barely had an instant to hold her breath and close her eyes as the mountain of wet sand fell atop her, pushing her facedown deep into the pit. Beneath her she felt the feeble shifting of the wounded man, and tried to work her hand down to reach for him, but he was buried too far below her. Her other hand was pinned in front of her face, and she turned her arm back and forth, loosening the sand around her face.
Have to get to the air before I smother.
Once she had made a small pocket, she jabbed her elbow backward, pounding it into the sand over her. Repeating the motion over and over shifted enough of the layer atop her to allow her to turn her body, until at last she liberated an arm and used it to pull her head and shoulders free.
She coughed and spit sand before she could drag in the first cool, sweet breath, cut short by a dousing of warm seawater over her head. Although it choked her, it also washed the sand from her face and allowed her to open her eyes. She blinked away the blurriness and the sting as she focused on the swaying form standing over her.
“You should be dead,” Pájaro ranted, his voice thick with phlegm. “Did Lechance tell you? Did he give you the antidote? Is that why you’re still alive?”
Simone saw how badly he was shaking. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You don’t? Then what is this?” He pulled at his hair, which came off his scalp in a clump, and threw it at her face. Blood trickled from his nose and ears as he coughed and spit bright red sputum onto the sand. “What did you do to me?”
“My father told you,” she reminded him. “Never touch the scroll.”
“Lying bitch.” Pájaro lifted a heavy, sand-encrusted object, and Simone saw a tiny glitter of green just before he clouted her with it. Through the roar of pain she heard him shout, “Where are the emeralds? What did you do with them?”
Simone grimly held on to consciousness as warm wetness seeped down the side of her face. She looked at the cross in his fist and saw the gold shining plainly through the sand, but that was all. The three large ovals that formed a triangle in the center of the cross held nothing but sand. The jewels that had once adorned the cross had been removed, probably before it had been buried. Since Simone knew it was the emeralds that bestowed immortality, the cross was useless.
Cristophe, it seemed, had trusted no one. Not even his own kin.
She had kept the bargain she had made with her father without sacrificing her own humanity. That should have made death seem like a blessing, but she didn’t want to die now. She wanted to be with Korvel. A strange green darkness crowded in on her vision, making her wonder whether she would pass out before he killed her. “I don’t know where the emeralds are, Pájaro.”