His mouth worked, wordless as a guppie’s, his broken wrist forgotten at his side.
“Step aside, Thomas. And I’d do it slowly.” The voice rolled over us, and my stomach clenched.
“But, Mr. Sand—”
“God, that’s really your name?” I pivoted into an open stance, arms crossed; gun on Thomas, conduit on Ajax.
He was poised at the top of the opposite staircase, coiled like a watchful rattler, his transparent eyes shining with anticipation. He was wearing black, which only served to lengthen his bony frame, and I knew his barbed poker was secured like a second spine at his back. I could smell it.
“Step aside, Thomas,” Ajax repeated, sauntering down the marble stairs to join us in the sunken room. “Unless you want to die.”
I waved the gun at him. “Most horrifically, I might add.”
Thomas stepped aside.
“I was wondering how long it’d take you to find us, Archer,” Ajax said, halting at the bottom of the staircase. “I take it you met some of my colleagues in the boneyard? How’d you like them?”
“I wasn’t particularly impressed.”
“But you killed only two.”
And I tried not to let it impress me that he already knew about the battle in the boneyard. “Does that bother you? Their deaths, I mean?”
He shrugged. “Everyone dies. And everyone’s too concerned with their own demise to worry much about another’s. It’s a small thing, really, when you think about it. Now, if you hope to see Warren again, drop your weapons. And don’t make me repeat myself.”
I didn’t want to, but Hunter’s whip still gave me options. I dropped my bow, safety on, to my feet. The gun followed.
“Where is he?” I asked as Thomas lifted my conduit, examining it. The guard on the floor groaned and rose halfway to his feet.
Ajax shook his head, a grown-up amused by the antics of a small child. “Why don’t you give me the gun in your left boot, and then I’ll tell you.”
He was lying and we both knew it. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do about it. His guards were crowding in again, so I leaned down, eyes on his, and dislodged Hunter’s second gun. Guard number two moved to take it from me. I shot him through the chest.
As the body hit the floor, even Ajax looked surprised. “Well, well. An agent of Light who likes to kill innocents. How…invigorating.”
“Nobody who works for the Tulpa is an innocent.” And I shot Thomas twice. He cried out, and my conduit clattered uselessly to the floor. There. I liked those odds better.
“Done now?” Ajax asked, crossing his arms, looking bored. “I mean, there’s really no one left for you to kill.”
“Except you.” I leveled the gun at his chest. It wouldn’t kill him, but it’d sure leave a mark.
Ajax simply held up a finger, as if just remembering something. “Wait, we’re both wrong!” He pointed across the room. “Look behind you.”
I pivoted slowly, keeping one eye on Ajax while I faced whatever new threat lay behind me. But I gasped when I saw Warren there. His body was bound to a chair with casters, head hanging forward, hair loose, black blood pasting a third of it to his skull. But then even Warren was forgotten in a split moment. My eyes were all for the man holding him.
“You.” And I released the breath I’d been holding for a decade.
He was the same as before. I hadn’t imagined him. Of course, now the moonscape wasn’t stamping hollows beneath his cheeks, and the gentle breeze off the desert floor wasn’t rustling his hair into spikes, but the cruel, thin lips were the same. They were the ones I’d searched for in the face of every stranger for the last decade—walking miles and miles past syringes and feces, and alleys that never saw light, seeking them—and now here he was. Standing there. Watching me. Wearing fucking Armani.
“An old friend of yours, I believe,” Ajax said, a smile in his voice.
“Hello, Joanna,” he said, in the voice of my nightmares.
“Hello, asshole,” I replied.
“Now, now. I don’t think you’re in a position to be calling anyone names.” He leaned forward, lifted Warren’s head from where it lolled against his chest and looked into his face. “Do you, Warren?”
Warren’s neck swayed side to side beneath his grip, a motion that made my stomach roll over on itself. Carelessly, he let it drop again.
“Wow, Joaquin,” Ajax said. “Look at her chest.”
I didn’t have to look to know it was glowing. Heat fired through my body, pumped madly in my temples and veins.
Joaquin, however, did look. Then leered. And touched himself. “Pretty.”
I let my right hand drop to my side, a distraction as my left hovered over the pocket where Hunter’s whip was hidden. I was certain they couldn’t smell it—its master, after all, possessed the aureole—and both believed I was no longer armed. When Ajax took a step forward, I noted it, but made no move for the whip. I was biding my time. Drawing the tiger in closer. I inhaled deeply, but only smelled the two of them in the room. And the two dead guards.
And Warren’s agony.
“Wondering where everyone else is?” Ajax said, circling me to start the game of cat-and-mouse.
I shifted, keeping him in my sights. “It had crossed my mind.”
“Joaquin and I have thoughtfully planned this intimate little party just for you. Cozy, isn’t it?” He took another step forward. Joaquin tightened Warren’s body restraints, settling him at the top of the stairs like a king fastened to his throne. “We decided we want to get to know you a little better, Joanna. And Warren here gets to watch.”
“In other words,” Joaquin said, turning to me with a wink, “we want you for ourselves.”
He tossed one of Warren’s arms into the air in celebration. It fell limply back to his side. Warren, it seemed, wasn’t going to be watching anything.
I shook my head slowly, astounded at the magnitude of evil in the room. Of course, I’d destroy them both if I could—I’d discovered that I too could do my fair share of killing—but a part of me thought, What for? There would always be more sick fucks to follow in these two’s footsteps, and more after them. It was like treading water in the middle of the ocean, with no land, no ship, no help in sight. Eventually you’d have to stop, and let yourself sink.
“You didn’t think we were just going to kill you without having a bit of fun, did you?” Joaquin asked, his fingers drumming carelessly atop Warren’s slumped head. “You first, Ajax.”
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
“Really, I insist.” Joaquin waved the protest aside like he was swatting a fly. “I’ve had her before.”
“You are too kind.”
I had gone as cold and still as the marble blanketing the room. My mouth suddenly felt like I’d swallowed a quart of sand. “I’ll kill myself before I ever allow you inside me again.”
Joaquin shrugged. “Whatever. Suicide is of the Shadow too. Isn’t that right, Warren?” He took a knife from behind his back and placed its hilt in Warren’s open palm. Holding the lax fingers around it, he made a cutting motion across Warren’s throat, miming suicide. Blood bloomed, and Warren’s eyes fluttered open long enough to roll back into his head, but he fell limp on a faint groan.
I had jumped, expecting to feel a sympathetic score of the blade across my own neck, but didn’t. Our connection was severed, probably because he was too far gone to be saved. And, I thought, for any of this to matter now.
An eye popped open from beneath the matting of Warren’s hair. And blinked.
No, I thought, inhaling sharply. It winked.
I glanced over at Ajax, but he was watching me with an almost rapturous expression. Joaquin wore a similar one as he continued to thrum Warren’s skull. I saw the bright red ribbons of newly healed scars winding across every inch of his bared skin, and had to clench my jaw against the anger rising inside me again.