Chapter 35 #2
I close my eyes for a moment, reveling in his warmth, in his touch. There’s something peaceful about being in his embrace. I never want to leave it.
Chest trembling slightly, he tightens his grip on me and speaks low in my ear. “For a moment up at the castle, I thought I’d lost you. When I saw you lying on the ground, bleeding out and powerless to stop it, I—”
I tip up my chin to find him watching me, brow pinched in agony, nostrils flared.
Eyes flashing, his next words have a finality to them. “Ingrid deserved much worse than a bullet in her head.”
I laugh softly, once. “She absolutely did, but it’s alright.”
His jaw ticks. “No, it’s not.”
“I know.” I quirk my lips up into a half-smile. “That’s just something people say when they’re trying to reassure someone.”
His attention shifts to my bullet wound, slowly resting his right palm against it. I expect to feel immense pain, but I don’t. Only a profound twinge lingers, seeping dully into my bones.
“Miss Hawkins…” He doesn’t say anything more.
Cec clears his throat. “I know I’m mostly blind, but I am still here.”
I take a step back and Bes releases me, my legs solid beneath me now. I regard Cec, more grateful than ever to have the two of them by my side.
“So, what do we do now?”
Cec starts pacing back and forth in the small room, cane in hand. “We have no idea where Mara and Kali are, and we can’t be sure if Anders has been compromised. Neither are we able to contact him to let him know where we are. All the same, we should head for the rendezvous point.”
“Agreed.” Bes regards me. “Can you walk?”
I grunt. “I was shot in the shoulder, not the leg like you were. I’ll be fine.”
“If what we saw in you is to be believed, you’ll be stronger now, I think,” Bes muses. “Stronger than you might realize.”
My stomach hollows. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”
A sharp pain nettles into my injured shoulder when I move it, and I suck in a breath. So much for being stronger.
Peering down at the wound, the bullet did minimal structural damage to my shirt. Blood stains the damp material from where it tore through. But I’m alive, and that’s damn good enough.
“My wound is healed?”
Bes nods. “That, we’re certain of. Cec is the best healer.”
“As if his ego isn’t big enough already,” I mutter.
Cec grins wide. “Have to compensate somewhere.”
I head for the door. “Let’s find Anders and get the hell out of this beautiful, godforsaken country.”
We exit the storage room, take a moment to make sure no one’s around, and steal into the night.
Moving swiftly through the shadows of the grounds, we follow Bes’s lead, quickly passing the front of the church and keeping to the tree line until we reach the main road.
Lit up now atop the hill, warm light flickers from inside the castle.
I imagine Gurlitt in there, having dinner with his friend as if nothing happened.
As if he wasn’t taken hostage and sliced open hours earlier.
And what about Rheinberger? Does he have any idea what happened on his own property?
We weren’t exactly quiet about it; if he was home, I imagine he heard the gunshots, if nothing else.
Or the maid finally came to and ratted us out.
At the very least, there are dead bodies strewn on his lawn that will eventually start to stink.
Maybe Rheinberger was dead long before we got there.
Silence spills across the darkening road as we reach it, with only the rumble and woosh of a passing car now and again, allowing us to cross it without a hitch.
Of course, the sky chooses this moment to crack open and pour down on us.
Oddly enough, I can’t feel the rain, even as it soaks through my clothes.
I wonder if it’s the magic pulsing through my veins, or if I’m still numb from the trauma of being shot.
“I can see the car,” Bes calls out.
I take Cec’s arm and we start to run, the rain pelting us and drenching us to the bone.
My boots slip now and then on the dampening ground.
I manage to keep on my feet, breath barely hastening with the effort.
Rainwater drips down my face and trickles into my bullet wound.
I barely notice it. In fact, I’ve never felt so good in my life.
The rational part of me wants to panic at the realization.
I never craved this magic; in fact, there was a time I would’ve rather died than be subjected to it.
However, the other, slightly less rational part of me—the same part that couldn’t rest until I knew if the Amulet of Amun had the ability to do what people claimed—can’t wait to see what I might be capable of.
It takes me a moment to see what Bes saw: the front end is partially hidden between two buildings with the headlights off. The car is so nondescript, I almost don’t recognize it as ours.
Something about this doesn’t feel right, but I can’t put my finger on what.
That’s when I notice the body face down in the mud. I gasp, the sound inaudible over the rain. Before I can wonder if it’s Anders, I look closer, noticing long dark hair, tighter dark clothes, and slight curves. Definitely not Anders.
Bes approaches them slowly. Crouching down, he grips their shoulder and turns them over. My breath whooshes out of my chest at the slit neck and wide blue eyes.
Mara.
At the sight of her lifeless body, my stomach heaves, then settles easily again. She got what she deserved. But who killed her? Anders? Though I’m still certain he wasn’t a spy, we don’t actually know where his allegiances truly lie. Or it could’ve been Kali, who’s been missing this entire time.
Bes gestures toward the ground close by, where I notice another set of tire tracks slowly being washed away by the rain, then to the car. I nod.
“Stay here,” I murmur to Cec, and he obeys.
Bes and I creep up on either side of it, not wanting to frighten Anders, but also having no idea if he’s alone, or in the car at all.
The stench of gasoline pricks at my nose as I come upon the driver’s side window. It’s rolled down all the way, allowing the rain inside to pitter-patter on the leather seats. That’s not a good sign.
The two of us reach the front—and I finally notice Anders. His chin rests unnaturally against his collarbone, his eyes wide open and sightless, a bloody bullet hole ripped through his temple.
“Oh, God.” I put my hand to my mouth as guilt tears up my insides—I’m going to be sick.
Bes cups the back of his neck with both hands. “Fuck.”
“What is it?” Cec chokes on his question at my back. He followed me after all. I turn to find his brow wrinkled.
When Bes doesn’t respond, Cec fumbles for the metal top of the car to keep himself upright. “Don’t tell me. He’s not dead. He can’t be dead, not like this.”
Bes vaults over the slick hood to the passenger door as I move in on Cec. Though he stands fine on his own now, I’m not sure he’ll be able to get up again if his knees give out. I place myself between him and Anders, despite knowing he can’t see him. Can’t witness the carnage.
Bes’s next words are solemn but determined. “We have to go.”
Cec shakes his head vehemently, voice thick. “We can’t leave him here. His family deserves to know what happened to him. He deserves to be buried properly.”
Bes doesn’t loosen his expression. “I’m sorry, Cec. I wish we could, but you know the rules.”
Cec whips his head in Bes’s direction, milky eyes wide—a man possessed. “And what if it were Hawkins? Would you simply dump her body on the side of the road to be picked at by birds and rot away in an unmarked grave?”
Bes looks away and doesn’t reply.
“That’s what I thought.”
I hold up a hand and do what I do best: “I’d like to go on record to say, while my first choice isn’t being dumped on the side of the road, you can feel free to set my corpse on fire as a way to escape, should the occasion arise.”
Cec clenches his fists. “It’s not right.”
“No, it’s not. He deserves an urn on the wall.” I place a hand on Cec’s arm, wanting to say it’s all my fault. To take the blame for Anders’s death. That he’d be alive if I hadn’t invited him along. “We’ll take him with us, won’t we, Bes?”
Bes’s gaze drops to the ground.
I squeeze Cec’s arm. “The best thing we can do now is to make the people who did this pay for it. If we live, we can avenge his death; if we stay here and die, we’ll be in the same boat as he is.”
After a moment, he turns to me, his eyes rimmed red. “For Anders.”
I nod. “For Anders.”