42. Jet
JET
Ihold her until her sobs quiet. I hold her until I feel her steeling her spine.
She draws back, wipes the last of her tears. Cotton is at her side pressing the top of her head against her thigh. She feels it too, Amal’s despair.
“I’ll tell you everything,” says Jameson from the other side of the room. “If you’ll let me walk away. I’ll disappear. There’s nothing for me here anyway. I can tell you everything.”
We turn to look at him. “Tell me then,” Amal says, her tone strangely flat.
“You promise it? You will let me walk away with my life?”
“I will let you live,” she says. I hear what she doesn’t say.
He nods, that arrogance of earlier creeping into his face as he begins. “What he said when the ceremony started about your ancestor—”
“Ancestor?” she asks.
“Jeremiah Fairbairn. His daughter was… mistreated at the hands of one of the Sovereign Sons.” I know Amal doesn’t know what a Sovereign Son is but she doesn’t ask, doesn’t interrupt.
Just lets him continue. “Jeremiah changed the trust. The wealth of the Scottish chapter of The Society is controlled by one or two families. Not more. The Fairbairn inheritance is what sustains us. Has been sustaining us for years. Until recently.”
“They’re bankrupt,” Severin says to the room. “From what I saw at least.”
“Correct,” Jameson says, pushing himself to stand, cradling his arm where he took a bullet in his shoulder.
“So, Fairbairn thought to excommunicate himself and his family and protect his fortune but he was killed before he could finalize what he needed finalized. The way the trust was written, as long as we kept control of the descendants, all was well.”
“All was well?” Amal says, taking a step toward him, Cotton at her side growling at Jameson. “What about my mother?”
“Your mother… participated in the ceremony.”
“She participated?”
He clears his throat, drags his gaze from the dog to her. “Obviously I was not in favor of any of it. I am not a part of the twelve, as you saw for yourself tonight.”
“But she got away.”
He nods. “She managed it somehow and she managed to hide your existence. Those who helped her were punished and when that watch turned up and we saw the footage from the antique dealer, well, we were quite certain of your heritage, but the DNA test proved it.”
“I’ve heard enough,” Amal says. “And just to be clear, you’re just as guilty as the rest of them.”
I step forward, pick up a gun from the hand of a fallen soldier.
“Wait a minute. You said I’d walk away. You promised!” Jameson says to Amal.
“Oh shit. You’re right,” I say to him in place of Amal. “Amal, sweetheart, do you allow him to walk away with his life?”
“I did promise him that,” she says.
“Sweet of you, considering,” I say, then turn to Jameson.
“But sadly for you, I promised no such thing and I don’t allow it.
” I raise the gun and don’t bother to wait for the sniveling to begin.
Instead, I put a bullet in his gut and watch him drop, screaming in agony.
I step toward him, press the toe of my boot into his stomach as he writhes. It’s a terrible way to die.
“Oh God…”
“You’ve got a little…” I point. “Piss.” He’s wetting his pants.
“Mercy. Mercy.”
“Mercy?”
He nods, pain etched on his face.
“Seems I’m fresh out.”
“There’s another one. Almost got away.” Cassian’s voice cuts through the moment. We both turn to find a soldier dragging Councilor Senna back into the chapel.
“What do you want to do with him?” Cassian asks.
I look at Senna, at his mean little face, that mask I knew I’d seen in the Great Hall on top of his head, forgotten in all the commotion.
He looks around the room, eyes landing on Jameson. His terror is visible on his face.
Good.
I stalk toward him and snatch his mask away. I study its’ cruel face. I haven’t seen it since I killed my grandfather. Holding it now, it’s not panic I feel. It’s something else.
“You want to play games with me, Councilor?” I ask. “You sick prick.” I hold the mask up.
“I don’t know what you mean. I swear it.”
“You had someone wear this. Or maybe it was you, but I don’t think so. Too short. But you thought to do it to fuck with me.”
“You’re mistaken, I assure you.”
“Am I? Then how did this mask end up here at all? I thought you’d destroyed everything that had to do with my grandfather.”
“I did not… recall I simply… wore a mask.” I see his guilt as he tells me his lies.
I snort. Shake my head. Because it doesn’t matter. Holding this mask now, looking at it, it’s just a mask, something for weak men to hide behind. I toss it aside. My grandfather is dead. I killed him. The mask is nothing. It holds no power over me. Unless I allow it to and I do not.
But there’s still what he did to Sev.
“Jet. Time. What do we want to do here?” Cassian asks.
I look at my brother. “I say we shut down this chapter of The Society. Burn it to the ground. What say you, brother?” I ask Sev.
“Fire,” Sev says, taking a step toward Senna. “It’s fitting, don’t you think, Councilor?”
“An eye for an eye. The Society’s doctrine,” I say.
“I am not a part of this chapter,” Senna says, looking to Cassian. “I have no control over what they do here. This ceremony?” He shakes his head, looks at Robertson’s and Jameson’s dead bodies. “It’s not our way. You boys know that.”
“But that’s just it. We’re no longer boys, Councilor,” Jet says. “And it’s time you pay for your sins.”
“I am a Councilor of the New York branch and as such, I demand to be released!”
“Do you?”
“If you murder me here, they will come for you. The Society will come for vengeance.”
“Murder?” I cock my head. “We would never…” I cross to the altar to where one of the few remaining candles is. I pick up the taper the priest used to light them all earlier and touch it to the flame. “What murder? You really shouldn’t light so many candles in such an old place. It’s dangerous.”
I touch the flame to the tapestries on either side of that wooden carving and there’s a flash of heat as the two instantly go up in flames. The fire spreads quickly, but I’m not taking any chances. I light another tapestry on fire.
“An accident in the midst of your little ceremony. All the bodies burned up.” I shrug my shoulders. “Happens with these old places, am I right?”
“You can’t do this!” Senna calls out. “You can’t—”
“Shut the fuck up, Councilor.” I turn to my brother. “Sev?” I hold a gun out to him.
“No. Please. Please! I helped you!” Senna begs.
Sev steps forward. “I prefer,” Sev starts, gesturing to one of the discarded daggers.
“Always knew you had it in you, brother,” I say, bending to get it for him, wincing as I do because I am shot and flesh wound or not it still hurts like a mother fucker.
Sev takes the dagger and steps toward Senna. “Say hello to our grandfather when you get to hell,” he says, then grips hold of the man’s hair to jerk his head backward and slices his throat.
I cock my head, watching. “Amazing how that spurts, isn’t it?”
Amal watches the body as it lands with a thud on the stone floor.
“We should go,” Cassian says. The fire has reached the wooden rafters of the ceiling, the heat becoming unbearable.
Cotton barks in agreement.
I take Amal’s hand and we head to the exit, soldiers carrying the three we lost.
The rain has stopped, but clouds threaten more.
We hurry back to the door we came from. Back into that terrible place where the quartet is still playing, the people attending the party oblivious to what happened at the chapel, too far from it to hear or see much until it’s too late.
Until those bodies are burned up and no one is left to tell the tale of would-be rape. Of murder.