22. Rizki
Chapter 22
Rizki
Zoe, John, Detective Jackson, and the other soldiers who had rushed to the door all looked at Liliana.
Everyone was staring at her again. She hated that, but right now, she was far too worried about Alexander to care. “I do not know where Alexander is, but Officer West is hitting him. He is tied to a chair in a room like this, but with a window behind him with no glass.”
“West?” Detective Jackson shook her head. “He was on protection detail with the rest of us, but I haven’t seen him since before the fake Bennett and I were sealed in this room. Why would he turn against the Colonel?”
Why would Officer West hurt Alexander?
The big police officer who had tried to comfort Liliana when she shut down from so many people staring at her at the police station grabbed the blood-splattered shirt of her lover and yelled into his face, spittle flying from his lips. “Where is it? What did you do with the sword?”
Alexander smiled. There was blood on his teeth. “I ate it. I was feeling iron deficient.”
A heavy fist hit his stomach, making him double over and gasp for breath.
Liliana flinched. “He seems to want information from Alexander.” She didn’t mention the sword since that was a secret. “But Officer West isn’t acting like … like Officer West.”
Detective Jackson pressed her lips together. “So, I was guarding the wrong body. And I shot the one person who can tell who is really who.”
“Charlie Foxtrot without doubt.” John brushed his hand across his short black hair, scattering sawdust. “Are the rest of us actually us?”
Liliana looked around the room with her third eyes. Everyone’s aura was the normal myriad vibrant colors of Fae or beast-kin with the exception of Zoe and Detective Jackson who had the slightly less bright souls of Normals. “Yes, the rest of you are who you appear to be.”
Detective Jackson used the long sleeves wrapped around the bulk of the shirt to tie off the makeshift bandage and sat back. “But the person you’re seeing isn’t West, though?”
Liliana shrugged and shook her head at the same time. “My fourth eyes can only see what appears to be. They cannot pierce the surface of things like my third eyes, but the person who looks like Officer West is not acting like Officer West.”
She watched with her fourth eyes as Alexander caught his breath.
Officer West pulled his head back by the hair and asked. “You stole the sword from the red wolf. I already know that. Where did you hide it?”
Alexander flashed teeth in a smile that was more angry than happy. “Aurore’s information is faulty. She’s sent you on a wild goose chase.”
The man laughed. It sounded eerily familiar to Liliana, but it wasn’t Officer West’s laugh. “Do you think your sister is the only one in the world who wants Fraegerthach?”
Liliana frowned at that. If Princess Aurore did not send the man, who did?
Detective Jackson’s brows scrunched, thinking about an entirely different, and far more immediate problem. “If the person with Bennett isn’t West, then where the heck is West?”
Where is the real Officer West?
Liliana’s fourth eyes shifted focus to a vision of the police officer lying unconscious in his underwear somewhere dark with a deep cut in his short hair that bled profusely. His hands and feet were bound. “The one hurting Alexander is definitely not Officer West any more than that thing was Alexander.” She pointed to the pile of sawdust, twigs, and clothes. “Officer West is injured and unconscious somewhere. We must find him soon or he could die.”
John said, “Sergeant, you and the detective, look for the missing cop. I’ll focus on finding the Colonel.”
Giovanni nodded and Detective Jackson stood.
Liliana spoke to Zoe. “Officer West is in the dark, bound, gagged, and hurt, probably somewhere nearby. I saw cinderblock like the walls here, and wooden boxes around him.”
Zoe nodded. She ran out of the room. Detective Jackson went with her. “Lopez, Delgado, you’re with me. Search every shed, room, or hidey hole. We’ve got a man down. Start here, circle and push out.”
John squatted beside Liliana. “You said the Colonel is in a room like this, but with a window, right? With no glass?”
Liliana nodded.
“There’s someone stationed at every window on the first four floors. The next two floors, the windows are bricked over. Only the top floor of the fire tower has open windows. We built a cinder block wall across the stairs last spring to make it harder to get up there for drills. The only way is to drop down from the roof or climb the building.”
Liliana looked at the outside of the building with her fourth eyes. There were ledges here and there where windows had been bricked over, and places where the mortar had crumbled exposing the steel building understructure. When they called this building a fire tower, it looked like they meant that they had set it on fire a few times, and possibly fired small artillery at it. “I can climb this building.”
John looked down at her leg, wrapped in a thick, bloody shirt serving as a bandage. “I can radio a helicopter. Get it here in fifteen minutes.”
Liliana looked again. She flinched as a huge fist impacted Alexander’s temple. His face went slack. He lost consciousness and a big gash streamed blood where a ring on the big man’s finger ripped the skin. With a sharp inhale, she recognized that ring.
“I do not think Alexander has fifteen minutes.”
John extended a hand.
Liliana got to her feet, or rather foot. Gingerly, she tested her weight on the other side. Pain flooded her when she did, making her dizzy, but the leg held. Alexander was bound and unable to fight, in a room with a professional assassin. “I will climb.”
John looped her arm over his shoulder. He put his arm around her waist, supporting half her weight. They stumble ran out of the building and around. He pointed with his free hand. “There are windows on the eighth floor there. Any other information you can give me to narrow it down?”
Liliana focused on Alexander, unconscious in the chair, bloody drool dripping from his slack mouth. She tried to see beyond him. It was always so hard to see beyond something so emotionally charged. The room looked the same, plain gray concrete with an empty window frame casting light on the back and one side of Alexander’s bloody face.
She looked at the sky with her human eyes, considering the slant of the light. “He is in a room on that side of the building.”
John nodded. To Liliana’s surprise, with apologies, he lifted her off her feet with one arm and ran up several flights of stairs until a solid cinderblock wall blocked their path. He went into an empty room on the side of the building she’d indicated. He led her over to a window sealed in with plain brick and mortar, only a few inches thick. Cinderblock wider than her hand outspread made up the rest of the building.
John let go of her. He left Liliana leaning on the wall as his body changed. His nose elongated to something pointy with a dark nose and a lot of teeth. His dark hair was split by a stripe of white that ran down his long nose as tawny fur spilled over his skin. Impressive six-inch claws extended from his fingers. His shoulders bulked well beyond their normal, already sturdy form while his arms became shorter and thicker. Unlike nearly every other shifter she knew, the badger-kin didn’t become any taller. If anything, he shrank slightly, gaining in width and bulk, but losing inches in his legs.
He hunched in tight and clenched his clawed hands, then focused all that compact power, starting at his hips and flowing into a punch into the center of the brick filling the window frame. The mortar cracked and the bricks moved where his fist hit. A spot of red was left behind when he drew his hand back. He struck with the other hand.
“Your hands!” Liliana said.
John shrugged his over three-foot-wide shoulders. “I’ll heal,” he growled.
He struck again with each hand, the bricks breaking, sliding, and crumbling, leaving the bloody imprints of his knuckles in the indentations. Finally, he bared his sharp teeth and growled as he struck. Bones crunched as the blocks ground together and fell out of the window. John cradled that hand to his chest. When the blocks stopped falling, a two-foot-wide hole let in the fresh air. It had taken less than half a minute.
He hit the blocks on either side with his shoulders, toppling them to the ground to make the hole big enough for Liliana’s slight form.
John helped her through the hole and extended his unbroken hand through it, palm up like a step. She pulled a safety line from the spinneret in her wrist and looped the end around John Runningwolf. He seemed to be the sturdiest thing in the area.
“Go, go!”
Liliana went. She put the majority of her weight on the leg that didn’t have a hole in it and a bulky bloody bandage tied to it. She hooked her arm blades into ragged cracks in the mortar, stuck her silk to anything that looked sturdy enough to hold her weight. She went up nearly as fast as an insect. When she had to put her weight on the bad leg, she just gritted her teeth like John punching the bricks with the crunch of broken bone.
Her leg would heal, too.
It made her dizzy when she pushed with too much of her weight on that leg. She really needed not to pass out right now. The drop was seven stories at this point. She probably wouldn’t go splat at the bottom, but she couldn’t save Alexander if she was dangling unconscious from a safety line.
She checked on him with her fourth eyes.
The man who looked like Officer West poured water from a bottle over the unconscious man’s head, then tossed the water bottle aside.
Alexander blinked blearily to wakefulness, water dripping from his face and hair.
He lived, for now. But looking forward in time, she still saw him on the ground, unbound from the chair. Zoe Giovanni put two fingers on his throat for a long moment, and with despair in her voice, said, “He’s dead.”
No matter what Liliana did, she couldn’t save him.
Blinking tears, she climbed in through the window. It didn’t matter how long he would live, she would fight for this man until he drew his last breath.
Alexander looked over his shoulder and the assassin who had a fist cocked back to hit him again, stopped and looked up.
“I thought maybe you decided not to come after all,” Alexander said.
She stood to her full height once inside. “Sorry I’m late. I had a very bad day.” She limped a few steps, the bloody sleeves of the makeshift bandage dragging.
Alexander spat blood onto the floor, then wiped his mouth on his t-shirt. “Mine hasn’t exactly been roses and sunshine either.”
“I suppose I should have expected you,” the man with Officer West’s face said.
“Hello, Rizki,” Liliana said. “Everyone already knows you are not Officer West.”
“Hah!” he laughed. “You have cost me my scapegoat, Spiderling. I should be mad, but I am glad to see that you grew up so smart.”
“I’m not a child anymore.”
“You two know each other?” Alexander asked blearily.
“This is my sister’s husband,” she told Alexander. “Let him be, Rizki.” Liliana limped another step closer until she stood next to the chair Alexander was tied to. “He is mine to protect. You cannot have his life.”
The big man shrugged. He touched his belt buckle with three fingers. His face and body melted like hot wax when the candle flame is lit. He changed to someone smaller, only a few inches taller than Liliana, his hair dark and his eyes almond, but the belt buckle stayed the same. He stretched as if wearing another man’s body and face had been confining. The handsome Asian features and the sparkle in his eye were all too familiar. “Ah, Spiderling, I am sorry, but I have a contract.” Even his voice shifted, from Officer West’s baritone to a lightly accented tenor. “I have already accepted the money.” He shrugged as if in apology, his voice expressing mild regret. “You know my honor will not allow him to live now.”
In one motion, he drew a short, straight sword from a sheath on his back and brought it down.
Liliana’s arm blade blocked it just above Alexander’s stoic face.
He barely flinched.
She suspected Rizki meant to make Alexander’s death a fait accompli so he could avoid having to fight her. He would win. Rizki was an expert swordsman before Liliana was born. Plus, she wasn’t exactly in top fighting form with the bullet hole in her leg.
If she fought him, she would die, but she knew Rizki didn’t want to kill her. No one had paid him for her life. He hated to work for free.
“Your client doesn’t want his death,” she said. “Your client wants the sword.”
“Ha! Actually, both.” Rizki grinned at her, pulling his sword back into a ready position. “Are you offering to give me a legendary Fae sword to save his life? Who is this man to you?”
“I can tell you where it is now. You will have to go get it yourself.” She ignored the other question. It was none of his business.
“Maybe I will just slit his throat before I go, huh?” Rizki was still grinning.
“If he dies, the deal is off.” Liliana lifted her chin. “You will never find Fragarthach. I will make sure of it.”
“Ah, you drive such a hard bargain.” Rizki slowly raised his sword and his other hand in a gesture of surrender. “Bargain is done, then. The man lives.” He pointed his sword at her. “You are right that the client wants the sword more than his life and will accept it alone as fulfillment of my contract.” He sheathed his short sword.
Liliana could hear the sound of a helicopter coming to land on the roof above and metallic pounding on the thick cinderblocks below that blocked the stairs. The assassin didn’t look nervous in the least. She had no doubt that Rizki would find a way out. He’d probably take on the form of one of the other soldiers, then slip out among them. Whatever artifact he had in his belt buckle, it had mimicked Officer West perfectly, even his voice and North Carolina accent.
“Now, you must uphold your end of the bargain, little sister.” Rizki’s voice was warm, but his eyes were as cold as they always were. “Where is this legendary sword that no one has seen for millennia that they tell me is now in this podunk town?”
“Who told you it was in Fayetteville?”
Rizki grinned again, a dazzlingly bright, but empty smile. Her third eyes showed Liliana the cold calculation behind it. “Ah, ah, ah. That was not information you bargained for.” He shook his finger at her.
She gave Rizki Pete’s address. Her brother-in-law knew that she never lied, couldn’t lie. As he turned to leave, she said, “Rizki, many of the people here are my friends. Try not to kill anyone on the way out.”
Rizki flashed his bright grin at her. “You ask a lot, Spiderling, but for you? Ah, for you, I will do my best. No promises, though.” He left her alone with Alexander.
Liliana dropped to her knees in front of the chair. She cut the ropes on his hands and feet, freeing him from the chair.
“Why did you give that bastard Pete’s address?” Alexander was looking at her oddly, his head turned slightly.
“Pete has his sword. His Normal beloved is not home. Doctor Nudd and Siobhan are with him. Rizki will be in jail before the sun sets.”
Alexander chuckled, then stopped like it hurt. “That’s my Little Spider.”
A heavy iron bracelet encircled one of his wrists. She couldn’t figure out how to get it off him.
“Time locked,” he said. “The spell will break and it will unlock by itself in forty-eight hours. In the meantime, I’m cut off from the land and my power.” His other hand came up to cup her face. “Thank you for saving my life.”
Liliana rubbed her face against his warm palm. “I have not saved you. You are dying.” She looked closely at him with all her eyes, trying to figure out why he would die. With her second eyes, she saw heat blossoming on one side of his head where he’d taken the hard blow that knocked him out. Her human vision told her the pupil on one eye was blown, but not the other. “Are you blind in one eye?” she asked.
He nodded, a bare movement. “Is that bad?”
“I think your brain is bleeding. It will kill you in minutes.”
“It’s not that serious, I don’t think.” He wiped some of the blood off his face and tried to stand. His knees buckled.
Liliana tried to catch him, but her bad leg gave under her. Alexander fell with her underneath. She managed to turn his body a little as they fell. They ended up lying together on the ground. “You must let me bite you, my prince.”
“I told you I wouldn’t allow that.”
“My venom can heal you.” She knew that wouldn’t be enough for him. “Alexander, I love you.”
He smiled, a soft, half-asleep expression of genuine pleasure. His hand stroked her hair. He blinked slowly. “I’m not sure I deserve that.”
“Please, Alexander. I give you my word I will not tell you to do anything you don’t want to.” Tears filled her eyes. “Don’t make me watch you die.”
He pulled her in close and whispered in her ear. “I trust you.” His hand guided her head to his neck.
For this man, his trust was perhaps a more difficult thing to gain than his heart. “I do not have time to make it not hurt.” She bit the band of muscle where it met his shoulder, pushing hard to give him enough venom, she hoped, to heal his injury before it killed him.
He grunted softly in her ear.
She pulled back and looked at his face.
The pained tension vanished. His soul washed clean of pain. At least, he no longer hurt. His aura shifted to a warm, contented sunflower yellow.
Alexander’s calm face regarded her from his one functioning eye where they lay. “Were you in time?” His thumb stroked her cheek.
“I am not certain.”
“Kiss me, then. If I’m going to die in minutes, that’s how I want to spend the time.”
Liliana kissed him.
He kissed her right back. His lips and tongue tasted of blood, but he was warm. His mouth covered hers to claim her like he wanted to mark her as his forever. His hand in her hair angled her head just right so he could kiss her more deeply, the blocky bracelet bumped heavy and cold against her throat.
She watched his contentment flood with red passion that flared white at the center for a moment, like the rose he gave her.
His hand fell lax from her hair. The colors of his soul faded to dim flickers.
She sat up and looked down on him with her second eyes. Heat still shone in a nameless color that wasn’t red on one side of his head. She didn’t know if she’d saved him or not.
She carefully kept her fourth eyes closed. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to see.
She scooted back on her arms and one leg into the corner then wrapped her arms around her knees. She put her face down. There was no more she could do. She let herself shut down. Time went away. Fear, pain. For a while at least, all of it went away.