It happened in an instant. Sasha swung her arm to one side, pointed the gun beyond Marius and Deirdre, and fired.
Deirdre turned. Like a statue tipped on its side, Anders had fallen over, his rigid body still in the shape it had been, arm outstretched, gun in hand. As she watched, a bloom of red appeared on his white shirt, spreading outward.
“The bigger they are,” Sasha said, her smirk returning. “Now it’s your turn. DEER‑dree.”
She pointed the pistol at Deirdre and squeezed the trigger. At the same moment, Marius took a single step forward. Thunder split the air.
The thunder rolled away into silence. Smoke curled up from the barrel of Sasha’s gun.
“Oh,” Marius said. He stumbled back, sitting in one of the wing‑backed chairs by the embers of the fire. He looked tired, and it seemed for all the world as if he had sat down to rest. Then a spasm passed through him, and blood gushed out his mouth. He reached a hand inside his suit coat, then pulled it out, staring at his reddened fingers as if in fascination.
“Great Spirit,” Deirdre whispered. She knelt beside the chair and gripped his arm. “Marius!”
He did not answer her. She looked up, her voice a snarl of anguish and rage. “What have you done?”
“Nothing more than a minor mistake,” Sasha said. “After I eliminated you, I was to offer him one last chance to rejoin the Philosophers. But they doubted he would accept, and once he refused I was to destroy him. So it’s no great loss. And neither is this.”
Sasha moved forward and leveled the gun at Deirdre’s head. Deirdre shut her eyes. One more clap of thunder shattered the dusty air.
The thunder faded. There was a dull thud as something struck the floor. Not understanding how she could, Deirdre opened her eyes.
Sasha sprawled on the floor before the fireplace, staring upward, an expression of astonishment on her lovely face. There was a hole in the center of her forehead, oozing blood.
Deirdre looked up. A rangy figure stepped into view. Rain had darkened his blond hair, plastering it to his brow, and his eyes glinted like emeralds. There was a gash on his cheek, trickling blood. He held a gun in his hand.
“That is a wicked thing,” Beltan said, then threw the gun to the floor next to Sasha’s body.
Deirdre’s mind was numb. Did he mean the gun or Sasha? And how was he here? But none of that mattered. Fear flooded her, clearing her mind. Albrecht and Anders had both been shot.
“Beltan, go see to Anders. I’ll–”
A bloody hand clamped around her wrist. She gasped and found herself gazing into gold eyes. Only they were dull now, more like tarnished bronze.
Marius licked red‑stained lips. “Your partner is . . . still in stasis. There is time. Call for help. Use the phone in . . . the carriage house.”
She groped inside his coat; she had to stop the flow of blood. Her hands met a wet, gaping hole. Oh, by the gods. “Beltan, help me!” she cried, her voice shaking with panic.
She heard quick footsteps, then sensed Beltan standing behind her, but she could not take her eyes off Marius. Even in anguish, his face was beautiful, his golden hair like an angel’s. To her astonishment, he was smiling at her.
“Do not be sad for me,” he said, the words gentle. “Three and a half centuries is far too long. I’ve endured only so I could find someone to tell my tale to, and now I have. I found you, Deirdre. I am ready to join her now. I am ready to sleep.”
“No,” she said, but the word was soft: a lament rather than a command.
Another spasm passed through him. “It seems I am not meant to understand the . . . final mystery. I confess, I never believed I would. But you still can, Deirdre. Go to them for me. Go to . . . the Sleeping Ones.”
She could only shake her head, beyond words now.
“Please!” Marius’s eyes flickered like the flames of twin candles. His grip on her arm tightened. “Find the catalyst. Find it and . . . bring it to them. No matter what else happens, they must–”
His hand slipped away from her wrist. The twin candles flickered one last time, then went out. His head lolled back against the chair. Deirdre stared, unable to move.
“He looks at peace,” Beltan said gruffly, breaking the silence. “He was the one who was helping you, wasn’t he?”
Peace. The word was foreign to her. Deirdre looked up at the blond man, trying to make her brain function. “Beltan–how?”
“That little flea Eustace shot at us with his gun. He fought more fiercely than I would have thought once I cornered him.” Beltan touched his wounded cheek. “But I was able to engage him so Anders could reach the manor. I followed as soon as I finished my work.”
These words registered on Deirdre only for a moment. Then sudden energy crackled through her.
“Anders,” she said, standing and rushing across the front hall to where her partner lay on the floor.
He was still motionless, staring blankly. Blood had seeped from the wound in his chest, making a puddle on the floor, but not nearly as much as she had feared. She touched a finger to his neck and detected, faint but steady, a pulse. He was still in stasis. But for how long?
Her mind grew clear, crystallizing around a single purpose. She leaped to her feet. “Stay with him, Beltan!”
Without waiting for an answer, she dashed across the hall, into the foyer, and out the front door. Rain pelted her as she skidded down the stone steps and ran down the gravel drive. She saw a small form crumpled on the ground. Eustace. He had brought her the photo of Anders; he had been working with Sasha. Now he was dead.
“Hold on, Anders,” she said through clenched teeth as she pushed open the door of the carriage house. “Please, you’ve got to hold on.”
She grabbed the phone from the wall, dialed, then forced herself to speak in a clear voice. Once she was finished, she hung up. For a moment she shut her eyes, gripping her bear claw necklace, murmuring a prayer for the dead as well as the living.
Then she went outside and stood in the cold rain until she heard the distant sounds of sirens.
40.
Travis watched, transfixed, as the golden woman walked toward them over the slender span of the bridge. He was aware of the others speaking and moving behind him, but only dimly. To his eyes, the woman shone like a sun. Beneath his serafi, sweat trickled down his sides, over the flat of his stomach.
A pale moon eclipsed the sun, blocking it from sight. Hot anger surged in him. . . .
“. . . to go, Travis!”
Anger melted into confusion, and the moon resolved into a familiar face. “Grace?”
She gripped his arm, her green eyes bright. “Now, Travis– come on. Farr says we can’t let her get close.”
Her touch seemed to break the torpor that had come over him. Travis grabbed her hand, and together they ran from the bridge, catching up with the others at the arch that led back into the hall of statues.
“She did that,” Nim said, pointing to the crumpled body of a sorcerer at the top of the stone steps. “The gold lady. She’ll do it to us, too.” She buried her face against Vani’s shoulder.
“No, daughter, no harm will come to us,” Vani said, hugging the girl tight. However, her gaze was not as confident as her voice. “Never did I think Ti’an might still remain in Morindu. I always believed she died soon after her marriage to Orъ. After she became his bride, the stories of my people do not speak of her.”
“But the stories of the dervishes do,” Farr said, wiping sweat from his brow. “From what I’ve learned, she was her husband’s guardian. She drank of his blood, becoming immortal just like the Fateless. It was said she would destroy any besides the Seven who attempted to draw near the throne room. We must not let her draw close to us.”