Chapter 27
Grateful
This time Ignatius drove and Jake was in the back seat with her, which was not an improvement even if the smell was gone. Somehow they had magically cleaned up the monster blood, and even though she didn’t want to sit in the stuff, the apparent ease of wiping it away didn’t help Liv keep her calm.
None of this did.
Jake’s face was still bruised, but the hematoma looked old and yellow-green instead of fresh blue-black with red fringes. Ignatius shifted sometimes as if his chest hurt him, and his dark gaze rested on the rearview mirror more often than on the road.
He was watching her. So was Jake, whose apparent lounging relaxation didn’t fool her. She’d seen how goddamn fast he was. And Erik, too.
It was Ignatius who broke the tense, humming silence of tires on pavement and the engine forcing them to turn. “I must apologize, Miss Stellack.”
Oh, God. For what? Liv’s fingers tangled against each other; she pulled hard against them, her knuckles turning white.
She said nothing.
“The decision to wait until after the solstice to move you was apparently the wrong one,” the older man finally continued, and returned his gaze to the road. That was good—the last thing they needed was an accident right now.
Monsters she could handle. A car wreck was altogether different. Liv strangled a completely inappropriate laugh. She tried to think of what to say, settled for absolute truth. “I want to go home.”
“You won’t last an hour out in the open,” Jake piped up. “Not with that thing on you.”
She stopped twisting her hands against each other only because her fingertips leapt to touch the necklace’s hard lump under her fresh grey T-shirt.
The backpack had held toiletries, a change of clothes, pajamas—everything she’d need for a few days, assuming she didn’t want any of the left-behind books or her lists, or the journal she’d begun to write, stashing it in the cell’s mattress.
Now she was hoping someone would find it somehow, and realize she’d been kidnapped.
“It’s a traditional gift, Jacob.” Now Ignatius sounded even wearier. “Ma’am, did Erik ask you for anything in return?”
None of you have asked me about single goddamn thing. Liv took a deep breath. “It was a Christmas present. Yule. Whatever.” She forced her hand back into her lap. “He didn’t ask for anything.”
“At least that,” Jake muttered, and turned to stare out the window. Why had they left Erik behind? He wasn’t as forbidding as Ignatius or as irritating as the blond; of course they’d get rid of the one she halfway liked.
“It couldn’t have drawn the unclean; dreamstones are free of corruption.
” Ignatius changed lanes, sliding around a lumbering semi.
Snow whirled, caking at either side of the windshield where the wipers ended their irregular arcs.
“That was a very well-planned attack, Miss Stellack, and we’re taking you to the closest active temple with a lirai and access to the Flame. ”
“You still won’t tell me what that is.” Or sealing, or a hundred other little cryptic terms.
“Some things have to be experienced before you grant them reality.” Ignatius turned his head slightly as if he wanted to look into the back seat. “Like right now, for example. Erik is outside, keeping pace with us. An additional safety measure.”
But that’s impossible.
What a ridiculous thought. She’d just seen half-vegetable spiders and a monstrous land-walking squid with fangs and smoky red eyes studding every tentacle, after being held for weeks by a trio of sorcerer in a secluded stone monastery. Nothing was impossible anymore.
“I want a gun.” Maybe, if they wouldn’t give her one, she could have a tantrum. Even if she was smaller and weaker, there were ways—toddlers did it all the time, right?
“Absolutely not.” Jake’s hand shot out as if he would touch her, but Liv shifted, leaning against the door, and he stopped cold.
“Are you trained in firearm safety, then?” Ignatius didn’t quite scoff, but it was close. “Close combat? The anatomy of shadowbeasts?”
You don’t get to move the goalposts on me, sir. “I’d be trained a lot more if you’d bothered to do it rather than sticking me in a padded cell.”
Jake didn’t try to grab her again, but his blue eyes all but glowed with indignation. “The liraim isn’t a—”
“And you would have taken such training well, then?” Ignatius sighed, returning his attention to the road. “My apologies once more, Miss Stellack.” He wasn’t as sarcastic as her grandmother could sometimes be—but it was close.
Maybe adrenaline and a change of scenery would shake off any lingering brainwashing these guys had performed on her. Liv shuddered, but pressed gamely on. “I wouldn’t need training if you guys hadn’t kidnapped me.”
“Nah, you’d’ve been eaten. The thing in the alley…
” Jake paused, as if he expected Ignatius to shush or interrupt him again.
When the older man didn’t, he continued.
“Erik hit you right out of your shoes to keep you from walking smack-dab into it. When they get hold of a normal it’s bad enough, but a potential?
They’ll suck you dry like an orange slice, babe, and it’s not comfortable. ”
“Your life has been upended, and we have compounded the distress by following protocols you don’t understand.
” Ignatius stared at the road; tiny blue gleams rotated inside his pupils, revealed by the rearview mirror.
“When we reach our destination, all shall be revealed. But for right now we must travel quickly, and it will be easier if you do not fight.” He paused. “For all of us.”
Yeah, let’s save the fighting for the weird spiders made out of smoke and potato shoots, and the big hell-squids. That’ll be best, don’t you think? Her own sarcasm boiled in her throat now, tasting like acidic smoke. “I’ll try to make it as easy as possible on you.” There. That’s helpful, right?
“You should be grateful.” Jake didn’t think much of her restraint. “Any one of those things could have—”
“Jacob.” The single word brooked no argument. Ignatius stared at the road, those tiny glowing blue dots in his pupils moving slightly as his gaze roved over traffic. “Do me the honor of checking our trail for followers. Just because our lirai doesn’t sense any doesn’t mean we’re clear.”
“Yes, Father.” Jake shifted slightly on the bench seat, but he darted her a sharp, very blue glance. “Uh, so you’re thinking…”
“Yes.” Ignatius nodded, unsurprised. “Our lirai did not leave the temple; we checked every ingress and egress, and she had no chance to send a message through the shields. We have been cut off from Control. Someone knows she is with us, though, and also knows precisely when to attack. Someone powerful, and quite possibly treacherous.”
Wait a second. “Like one of you three?” Liv inquired, almost sweetly.
“That’s what you’re saying, right? Either that, or others in your…
organization?” She kept a nervous eye on Jake, whose hands had relaxed against his thighs.
His bright blue eyes half-closed, and she felt his attention move, the way she could sense being stared at on the bus or in a crowded bar.
Only this stare wasn’t directed at her. It flared behind them like radar, a cloud of intent.
“Yes, Miss Stellack.” Ignatius shifted in his seat again, and the blue dots in his pupils winked out. “That is exactly what I’m saying. You will never be left alone with only one of us, and all three of us will require examination once we reach our destination.”
“That’s great.” Liv could only see one problem with the plan. “What if two of you are in cahoots with the monsters?”
“Then we are all lost, and this is yet another exercise in futility.” One of his shoulders lifted, torn jacket scratching against leather upholstery, then dropped. “The world is full of such things. Something else troubles me, young one.”
Well, at least he’s not calling me Miss Stellack anymore. “What?”
“A simple potential shouldn’t be able to use an oneiros.
Wear it, certainly—but use it? No.” He shook his steel-grey head, a fractional movement, and Liv thought Erik might never know how much he copied the older man.
“You must be a very strong Dreamer indeed. And as such, you are quite valuable not just to the Sons and the shadowbeasts, but to the Mad God himself.”
Well, that’s just great. Liv looked out the window. The snow was really coming down, and there was no grey line of dawn on the eastern horizon. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“He won’t get you.” Jake’s attention retracted like an antenna. “We won’t let him.”
Pardon me for not being very comforted. But saying as much was counterproductive, so Liv just settled on her half of the bench seat and stared out the window.
Traffic was thickening, semis rattling and throwing gusts of snow to either side.
If Erik was out there, somehow keeping up with them, he was probably very cold.
So was she, as a matter of fact. Her teeth wanted to chatter; she hugged herself, hoping neither of the men in the SUV’s warm, plush cabin would notice.