Mortal Danger

A SACRIFICE TO LOVE

I woke alone.

Immediately I knew that was wrong, and dread cramped my stomach. I rolled out of Kian’s bed and ran to the living room. Foreboding turned to sickness, and I trembled as I padded toward the note taped to the door. Perspectives in the room seemed off, so that the paper got larger and larger, until it loomed bigger than the door, as if it was so heavy that it should pull the door inward into a hole that would swallow them both. Blinking my eyes repeatedly made Kian’s neat handwriting resolve from teary swirls into comprehensible language. I hated this note, even before I read it. But I had to know what it said and what he thought constituted an adequate good-bye.

Edie,

I wasn’t truly alive until I met you. It’s funny how spring always follows winter, even when you’ve given up all hope of ever seeing the sun again. But it rises. “Why does the sun come up, or are the stars just pinholes in the curtain of night?”

At that line, a quote from Highlander, I choked back a sob and it was as if he knew I would react that way as I read on.

Don’t cry for me, but I do hope you’ll remember that we were good together and you were always beautiful in my eyes. From the start, you mattered, even when I was trying to play by their rules. So do me one final favor, if I have the right to ask anything—live for me. Your future is wide open and without me, you’ll achieve remarkable things. I won’t see your potential ruined and you enslaved to Wedderburn. I’d rather die.

There’s one more thing I kept from you, a file I didn’t show you last night. In no future, if you’re with me, do you complete your mother’s work. I’m the sacrifice that must be made. And I’m willing.

You will succeed. You’ll repay the favors. Then your life will be your own. And that’s all I care about now. My time is done, one way or another, so let me choose how I go. I have always, always wanted to be your hero.

Kian

My heart cracked wide, threatening to spill a river of tears. In every way that matters, you’re already my knight in a shiny red car. How can you not know that?

“No,” I said aloud. “Damn you, no, bastard-asshole martyr, I don’t accept this.”

Fury lent me strength; I raced into the bedroom and grabbed my purse. My cell phone tumbled out of the front pocket. As I bent to pick it up, it rang. I recognized Vi’s number, and I knew she must be worried. It had been a couple of days since we’d talked.

Already moving toward the front door, I answered it. “What’s up?”

“Are you all right?”

“What, is your spider sense tingling?” Classic question parry since I didn’t want to worry her. She knew little about my actual life, but it warmed me that she cared. My red winter coat was hanging in the closet in the foyer; I shrugged into it and exited Kian’s building.

“I don’t know, I’m just … concerned about you.” She sounded puzzled, like she couldn’t explain it. “You were really quiet last time we talked. With your mom and everything … maybe you should spend the holidays with me?”

People should trust their instincts more. You’re right to have a weird feeling, Vi.

“I can’t leave my dad.”

“Bring him. I already talked to my parents. He can sleep in the den and you can have the trundle bed in my room. It’ll be good. Come on.”

“Maybe.”

I couldn’t tell her the truth as I ran toward what might be my doom. Early Saturday morning, I didn’t have to fight commuters, just a few runners, mothers out with children, and people gearing up for Christmas shopping. Dodging around the other pedestrians, I raced toward the station.

“Thanks. I … just want you to know that your friendship means a lot to me.” That was the kind of thing you said as part of a farewell like the one Kian wrote to me.

“You’re starting to freak me out. You sound all grave and … final.”

“I don’t mean to. Look, Vi, I can’t talk now. I have to be somewhere and I’m about to dodge into the subway.”

“Okay. Call me later?”

“Sure.” If I’m alive.

At least Vi would miss me if this rescue mission went wrong. Davina probably would, too. And my dad, God, I couldn’t even think about my dad. With shaking hands, I texted him. It was barely dawn, so he likely wasn’t up yet, but he should find my bullshit about going for an early run reassuring.

I don’t want to leave him alone. I’m supposed to help him. Optimum future, my ass.

Finally, I tapped out a message to Davina, nothing dramatic. Just, thanks for being my friend. Which might scare her, but … I knew the risks of confronting Wedderburn and interrupting the grand gesture Kian had planned. I hoped I got there fast enough to do … something. What, I had no idea; I hadn’t planned that far ahead. My head throbbed with tension and trepidation. Too much shock and grief apparently impaired cognitive function, because I did not feel at the top of my game.

The ride downtown seemed interminable and the tunnels were full of living shadows that slithered after the racing car. Long dark fingers crawled toward me, but I stared up at the lights overhead, letting them shine into my eyes until I saw spots. I won’t let the darkness in. I won’t. I’m not crazy. I didn’t realize I was mumbling this aloud until the old guy nearby moved away by several seats, but I was beyond caring what anyone thought.

The thin man watched me race off the car, across the platform and toward the stairs, but he made no move to stop me. Only the smell of corruption lingered in my nostrils as I blew past. It was too early on a Saturday for businessmen to be out, but there were service workers in uniforms and homeless people layered against the cold. A few of them raised their heads when I raced by, staring at a spot just over my shoulder, until I wanted to scream.

No breath for it. Keep moving.

Iris was at the desk in the lobby, red as blood, terrifying as always. “How good to see you again, Miss Kramer. Do you have an appointment?”

“Wedderburn will want to see me,” I said, hoping it was true.

She didn’t take my word for it, of course; she rang upstairs to check. In some ways, it was reassuring that even supernatural creatures clung to protocol and procedure.

I’m not too late. I’m not.

To my astonishment, Wedderburn must’ve asked her to put him on speaker. His voice snapped from the intercom. “Yes, send her up. There’s something I want her to see.”

If it’s Kian’s body … the careless cruelty of it would unmake me. But then, that was Wedderburn’s specialty. Ice doesn’t care who it harms. My knees quivered and I locked them, holding on to the reception desk for support.

Kian, you ass, I don’t need a hero. I just want you.

Wearing a deep frown, Iris scrawled a code. Like before, she warned, “This will get you to the proper floor and nowhere else. It will only work once.”

The elevator was spooky in silence, no tinny music today, but it moved so fast I heard the rushing air beneath it, as if I had been sucked up into a monstrous maw. I half expected teeth to crunch down and smash me like a bug in a can. At last, the car stopped and I got out. Wedderburn strode down the hall toward me, unusual. I had never seen him out of his office. When I realized Kian wasn’t with him, I choked down a tide of angry questions.

“How delightful of you to come,” he said. “I was starting to worry that you’d overslept and we’d have to start without you.”

Without another word, he led me back to his office and threw open the door. I braced for the sight of Kian in a pool of blood; my brain was ready for it, Dr. Oppenheimer whispering in my ear, The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true. But it was the best of all possible worlds. Kian whirled, alive, breathing—breathing and glaring—but alive. His jaw tightened, and his eyes went livid with a ferocious blend of fear and anger.

Wedderburn shut the door behind him with a restrained snick. Displeasure radiated from him like frost snapping from winter-withered leaves. He paced, so that his movements reminded me of the back-and-forth sweep of a blade across a weighted trap. Sooner or later, the axe would fall.

“You’re here to bear witness to his judgment?” he asked. “Brave of you.”

“Not exactly,” I started to say, but Wedderburn wasn’t listening.

“There is no doubt. Kian Riley serves you now, not me. And a tool that cannot be trusted to its purpose is irrevocably broken and must be discarded.”

Shit. I knew exactly what that meant.

I said desperately, “He doesn’t serve me. He cares about me. Surely you can understand the difference.”

“I gave him an order … and he did not follow it. Instead, he told you the whole of my plan and tried to help you escape, using my resources. I have the report here.” With icy irritation, he tapped the page on his desk. “That is … disloyalty. I saved his life, you know.”

Kian didn’t say a single word in his own defense. By the set of his shoulders, he was ready to accept the consequences. Though I didn’t blame him for it, he carried the weight of what the Teflon crew had done to me, the last day before winter break, and he regretted not giving his life for me then. I could hardly breathe for the pain tightening my chest. I had lost too much already.

Wedderburn turned to his desk and pushed a button. A tone sounded, then an inhuman voice said, “What do you require?”

“Send in the clown.”

At first, I thought it was a hideous, macabre joke, another of Wedderburn’s evil games, until the door banged open and a clown stood in the doorway. I narrowed my eyes on the smudged, faded “makeup,” then realized the cracked and flaking skin was imprinted with a huge red mouth with a white oval around it. The thing’s nose was bulbous and tinted red, and it had frizzy orange hair sticking out in all directions. Baggy clothes and giant shoes added to the disturbing picture, but that wasn’t even the worst part. In his hand, he carried a black case, and at Wedderburn’s nod, he opened it, revealing a shining variety of knives in all shapes and sizes: curved, straight, serrated blades, some more like scalpels, others for skinning or boning.

“Which one?” When the clown-thing spoke, it revealed sharp yellow teeth and a long pink tongue that snaked out to wet its mouth as it glanced between Kian and me.

Wedderburn inclined his head with an icy crackle. Kian held his silence, imperturbable in the face of death. In fact, a faint smile curved his mouth, as if he were glad to do this for me. Only this wouldn’t solve anything, and I wanted him with me, not as a martyr whose picture I could clutch and weep over.

“Wait,” I blurted.

“You have no cards to play,” Wedderburn said.

Inspiration struck; epiphany finally clarified into certainty. “That’s not true.”

Kian’s eyes widened and he shook his head, frantic. He tried to intercept me, but the clown wouldn’t let him.

You know me so well. But you’re not stopping me.

“I’m ready to ask for my final favor. Since Kian isn’t allowed to fulfill it, as you’ve disavowed him, then that falls to you, right?”

Wedderburn fixed on me an enigmatic look, steepling his fingers. “Correct.”

I hesitated, thinking about my dad and Davina, who might need protection down the line. But those were maybes. This was Kian’s definite death, here and now. I could not watch him die when I had the power to save him.

For someone like me, there could only be one choice.

“Edie, don’t. Let me go. It’s better this way. If you’re with me, you’ll never achieve what you’re meant to, and you’ll end up indentured. I told you in the note—”

“Then I want Kian set free, now and forever, truly free, untouchable by any immortal in the game. No tricks, no shadows on his timeline. Free.”

As I spoke, Wedderburn nodded, and a final line appeared at the bottom of my infinity symbol. Just like the first two, it burned as if someone held a soldering iron to my skin. I hissed as the sting faded. Asked and answered, now Kian and I have matching ink. Curling my left hand into a fist, I reached for Kian with my right. He looked as if I’d died for him, and I just didn’t know it. Yet he stepped to my side and laced his fingers through mine.

“Your services won’t be required,” I told the clown-thing.

“Today,” it corrected. “Ultimately, my services are always in demand.”

“You may go.” Wedderburn didn’t watch as his executioner strolled out. Instead, he was focused on me. Incredibly, he was smiling. “You’ve just won me a great deal of money, Miss Kramer, along with a fair amount of prestige.”

I froze. “What are you talking about?”

“From start to finish, you’ve behaved exactly as I predicted you would. A handsome boy, a forbidden romance … well. This outcome was inevitable. For a clever girl, you’ve been a bit of a disappointment in some respects. In others? You performed beautifully.”

“Because you wanted me to burn my favors. And I have.” Realization swept over me, along with a steaming hot burst of chagrin, but I couldn’t let Kian die.

“That’s been my goal from the start. If you think I care how you used them, then you don’t understand my strategy at all. Now, darling girl, you are precisely where I want you.”

He turned to Kian. “This doesn’t solve your problem with the Harbinger, though, does it? Since he’s not part of the game. But … that’s not my concern. I’ll have your watch back now, if you please.” The cold one touched a metal wand to the wristband and the thing fell off like a dead insect. I shivered. “The two of you may go.”

“Wait,” Kian protested.

Wedderburn leveled an awful smile on him. “Enjoy your freedom. I’ll ensure the others know you’re no longer in play and may not be used for ancillary maneuvers, either. Go. Be human.” He packed a world of scorn in the last word.

I tugged on Kian’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

This might not be a victory, only a reprieve, but I practically ran out of the office and I didn’t stop shaking until we reached the lobby. Iris came around the desk to block our path; she wasn’t smiling. The receptionist held out a hand expectantly.

“I’ve been informed that your employment has been terminated, Mr. Riley. I need your passcard back. Your security codes and clearances will be revoked immediately. I have also been instructed to inform you that if you appear on this property without a written invitation from any of the partners, I’m to have you arrested.”

“I understand,” Kian said, digging into his wallet and turning in his badge.

He seemed dazed as we stepped out into the wan winter light. People hurried about their business-coat collars pulled up and scarves wrapped about the lower half of their faces. I had never noticed how much the same everyone looked in their black coats, like a flock of ravens fluttering in the same direction. Some of them tapped at their phones as they moved and the motion put me even more in mind of pecking birds.

I pulled him toward the T station since he didn’t mention his car being parked anywhere nearby. If I guessed right, he hadn’t brought it, not expecting to need a ride home. “Let’s go to your place.”

That roused him and he fixed furious green eyes on me. “What the hell did you do?”

“The best I could. There was no other way to save you.”

“Now you’re at Wedderburn’s mercy. Trust me, that’s not where you want to be. Edie, you could end up—”

“Indentured. I know. But maybe I won’t. I refuse to believe who I date has that big an impact on my future. Anyway, I don’t care. The most important thing is that they can’t hurt or control you anymore.”

“That’s completely beside the point.”

“Not to me.”

“Damn you,” he whispered.

Then with the people swirling past us, he drew me into his arms and rubbed his cheek against the top of my head. “Don’t you get how this works? I was supposed to save you.”

“Says who? The favors were mine to use on whatever I want most. And, Kian … I need you with me.”

“Just when I think I can’t love you more—”

“You … love me?”

“God, yes. I’m in so deep … and now, you have no use for me. You’re still in the game, what do you need with an awkward, human boyfriend?”

“I’m human, too,” I reminded him. “And … I’d do anything for you. I just did, in fact. In case you haven’t figured it out … I love you, too.”

“But I’m a liability, Edie. The ones in the game can’t touch me, but immortals are devious. They could contract with noncombatants like the Harbinger, and now that they know I’m your Achilles’ heel—”

“So I’ll buckle on some ass-kicking boots—”

Kian cupped the nape of my neck and leaned in. His lips brushed mine, once, twice, then he nuzzled a path over my jaw to my ear. Rush of warm breath, and he kissed the side of my throat. Not what I expected, better, because it was tender as a rosebud yet not too much for the people surging around us. Gazing up at him, I swallowed hard.

“Wow.”

“You said something about my place?”

“Yeah.”

He slid his hands down my arms and turned our wrists to look at the matched set of marks. “I don’t know what’s coming, but I’ll be there with you.”

“That’s all I could ask.”

“You’re a miracle,” he said softly.

“Einstein said something like there are two ways to live: as if nothing is a miracle or as if everything is. And the fact that I’m alive? That’s the miracle. If I’ve helped you at all, it’s only because you saved me first.”

Kian cradled my face in his hands. “Whenever I’m ready to give up, there you are, hauling me to my feet.” I opened my mouth but he said it for me. “I know. We’ll be okay. As long as we’re still breathing, there’s hope.”

I didn’t kid myself it was over. Dwyer & Fell would challenge my place in the timeline—try to derail me while Wedderburn plotted, schemed, and protected his queen. At the end of next semester, I could end up indentured … or worse. The thin man was still out there, along with the old man with the sack, the black-eyed children, the clown executioner, and doubtless other monsters that I hadn’t encountered yet. Like Kian, I’d burned all my favors too fast and it might come back to haunt me.

At the moment, I didn’t care. I smiled as another Einstein saying sprang to mind—my new credo. You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

So I will.

As I followed Kian toward the station, snow sprinkled down, a dusting of white courtesy of Wedderburn, letting me know I wasn’t beyond his touch. Kian’s hand was warm wrapped around mine, his wrist naked without the watch that had been his master. A chill wind skated over me; I turned, staring up at the glass and steel monstrosity where the bitter-cold god hid from the modern world, like so many other ancient, terrible things.

And I whispered, “Game on.”