“If that’s all it turned out to be, they probably went to town to celebrate. They’re übertight, you know. Maker and mate. Even if you do burn us, it’s going to be impossible to bring the Trust down now that they’ve been reunited.”
When Samos’s lips pinched I thought, Take that, you sack of crap. But my inner celebration quickly fizzled. So Koren was Samos’s inside guy. Girl. Meaning all that rage at my unintended insult to her former sverhamin was just overdone fakery. Shoulda seen through that, Jaz.
Samos shoved the phone back to his ear. “You listen to me, you little bitch! I didn’t put my blood to paper just to see this deal crumble because you can’t figure out where some puta took the object of her obsession! Find them!” He snapped the phone closed, jammed it back in his pocket, and began chanting again. More logs flared, along with a new understanding that sent a shaft of pain spiking through my brain. Samos had made another deal with one of Satan’s minions.
“What did you do, Edward?” I asked. Both because I wanted to know, and because interrupting him slowed the spell and the fire. “What did the devil make you give up to pull off this deal?”
“This was a special one,” Samos said. “It had to be this Trust, because your sweetheart once dwelt here. And, as I well knew, Trust roots grow deep. So he would come running if his old homestead was threatened. Which meant he would bring you.” He spat at me, missing by a mile. But hell, if it got any hotter in this circle I’d be grateful for any form of liquid that came flying my way.
The hatred in Samos’s eyes felt like sulfur in the air, maggots on the skin. Until I reminded myself why it was there. Because Vayl and I had beat him. Repeatedly. And I wasn’t dead yet, dammit. Which meant—
“You didn’t answer my question, Eddie. Demons demand more than blood for their dirty deals. What did you have to give up to get to me?”
Though he turned his face from Jack, Samos’s eyes betrayed him. For just a moment they filled with anguish as they fell to the animal, still prancing restlessly at his henchman’s feet.
Ahhh . . . now I understood why the dog had transferred its loyalty over the course of a few hours. What irony. I’d relinquished my precious cards in order to find out what Samos loved most. And now he’d sacrificed what he loved most, his beloved Ziel, in order to kill me. And it looked like we’d both succeeded. Already the interior of the pentagram had become unbearably hot. We were beginning to sweat and writhe.
“Gotta do something,” said Dave. I wished I could see his face. No, on second thought, it was probably better that we lay back-to-back. It would make the end slightly easier to bear.
“Like what?” I asked as I struggled with my bonds. It was no good. They’d tied them too well for me to release myself before the fire did its work.
Tarasios began to cry. “I don’t want to die like this.”
“Should have thought of that when we were fighting,” Admes growled.
Despite our situation, I had to smile. No wonder Niall loved him.
“Jaz!” Dave suddenly hissed in our language, the one we’d made up before we learned to speak English. “Get mad!”
“I already am! What, do you think I’m lying over here wishing I could bake these suckers a loaf of bread?”
“No!” Despite the fact that they couldn’t understand us, he’d dropped his voice even more. I turned my head, digging my brow into the ground so one ear, at least, was directed toward him. “Remember what happens now when you get pissed? Sometimes alarms go off. And people have to, you know, come running.”
I closed my eyes. He wanted me to start a fire? When we were about to burn? How would that . . . oh. Okay. Because wildfire fighters did that sometimes. They’d set a fire to stop the killer flames.
But he was asking me to control something I didn’t understand. Well, you’d better figure it out, said Granny May. Now why, facing death as I was, would I imagine her and Jimmy Durante playing croquet? Hush up and concentrate! she snapped. Because all of us imaginary characters in here don’t relish the idea of roasting! This comment was followed by a chorus of hell yeahs from the rest of the cast, who’d gathered in lawn chairs at the edge of the yard. They seemed to be slugging beers and vodka tonics in equal doses in preparation for the big finale.
Great. I can’t even experience a moment of sanity at my death.
By now the four of us sacrificial lambs had scooted as close to the center of Samos’s pentagram as we could. Our hands were touching, tearing at each other’s bonds though so far our efforts had gotten us bupkes. Tarasios was crying so hard I could hear snot shoot in and out his nose. Admes had begun to swear between bouts of coughing. Only Dave was still talking.
“It came to you, when? What had you done before the fires started?”
“Gave my blood to the werewolf,” I said.
“Which caused what?”
“I have this thing called the Spirit Eye. It’s a Sensitivity to the supernatural, like yours only souped up. Your eye might be open just a slit. Mine is cracked pretty wide. Vayl’s blood. The tears Asha Vasta gave me in Iran. My sharing of blood with the Were. They all revved me up, so to speak.”
“So how have you worked those abilities before?”
“Concentration. Visualization. Yeah, it’s pretty much a mental thing.”
“Well, do it, Jazzy, because I think my shoes are smoking.”
I closed my physical eyes and thought about opening that other awareness. Only this time I wasn’t trying to trail killer vamps or locate soul-stealing reavers. Now I wanted fire, in a very specific ring, burning away from us. I realized instantly I needed a source, a spark, and then something to feed the flame. Rage, ready at my fingertips since nearly everyone I loved had died a year ago November, rose in me like a chronic disease. It laid its black, festering hands on the grass around us. And though it was still green from a recent rain, it didn’t matter. My anger made it crackle like last year’s threshings.
“Something’s happening!” Dave whispered.
I encased us in a shield that I imagined as a water-cooled protective bubble. But outside that circle I seethed. It wasn’t just this moment, having been caught, manhandled, and used as kindling for some madman’s power-crazed scheme. It was failing my mission. Losing my life and my brother. Lying helpless while Disa led Vayl toward disaster. Missing my last chance at a love that had promised to be real, and right, and fine. And, yeah, not knowing how to lay my dead to rest.
“What’s happening?” Samos yelled.
I could feel the fire now, a circle of rage and heat that I pushed out—whoosh—canceling his spell. When I opened my eyes, the logs had gone back to their smoky origins. But I’d done more than that. My flames had somehow reversed the abracadabra, made it reach out and grab on to the vampires and humans who stood at four points of the pentagram. Only Jack and Samos had been spared. The dog had torn free, run to a safe distance, and stopped to watch the proceedings. Samos, well, I had no idea why he wasn’t burning. Whether it was because he’d interrupted his own chant, or because he’d backed away from the fifth point, I couldn’t be sure.
He watched with a this-can’t-be-happening look on his face as his people spun and ran and rolled on the ground, all of them screaming with agony as they burned. He backed away as Overbite came at him, both hands pressing against his head. But he couldn’t stop the robots, who’d finally reached their limit. The explosion took off the top of his head, sending tiny, burning automatons flying in every direction. Hundreds of them landed on Samos, who instantly began yelling, trying to flick them off as if they were poisonous spiders.