Ascension (16 page)

She looked at Ryker. “Now pay Charon and let’s get this over with.”

Ryker did as she said, but his glare remained fixed on her. “You can’t go around manhandling people. We need him.”

“Is this about the free will thing again?” Kyana braced herself and watched the distant shore. The last thing she’d tolerate was a damned human challenging her. “We’re trying to save
his
world. He doesn’t get to choose whether he wants to help. It’s his duty. And ours to make sure he does it.”

Ryker frowned. “Is that your answer to everything? To force people to do things your way?”

“Yeah, it works well for me too.”

“Well it doesn’t work for me. Some of us believe in compromise.”

“Compromise?” She lowered her voice. “You lie to get people to do things your way. I intimidate. Same difference except my way produces faster results.”

“I lie?”

“You told him he’d be safe with us. That the Dark Breeds wouldn’t challenge us. That’s a lie. They’ll come after us faster because he
is
with us. It’ll be a hell of a victory if they can take one of us down.”

Ryker stuffed his hands in his pockets. He stared thoughtfully at the approaching shoreline. “So they would succeed?”

“Hell no.”

He grinned. “Then I didn’t lie.”

Chapter Sixteen

T
here was no doubt that Kyana’s request to let Hank handle the list of Chosen hadn’t set well with the Fates. Atropos hadn’t stopped glaring since Kyana had stepped into the cave, and Clotho was obviously more than put off at the thought of anyone else getting her hands on that scroll. But Lachesis had seemed to think Kyana was on to something.

Kyana suspected this was the only reason Clotho had given in.

With a grace no mortal could possess, Clotho floated to the far side of the Sisters’ cave. She pulled a glowing emerald from her neck, then bent and placed the stone securely into a chest the size of a shoe box and opened it. Kyana had to shield her eyes from the intense glow that spilled forth. The scroll was ten times wider and thicker than the chest itself, installed there, of course, by magic.

“I’m telling you there’s no evidence of our culprit on this scroll,” she said, cradling the treasure to her chest. “The parchment isn’t normal. It would tell us if someone other than a Fate had touched it. There would be smudges or . . . oh my goddess.”

As she handed the scroll to Lachesis, she too stared at it bug-eyed. “It cannot be! There was no evidence of it being handled when we last saw it.”

“I don’t understand,” Clotho said. “She’s right. There was nothing here before  . . .”

“Illusion Charm.” Kyana reached into her vest and pulled out her own Illusion Charm. “Whoever read this list had an illusion cast and it’s worn off. The question is, could it be a mark left by a god who might have touched it prior to the charm’s use?”

“No,” the Fates and Ryker answered in unison.

Kyana looked at Ryker. “How can you be so certain?”

“Gods don’t have fingerprints,” Lachesis answered instead, her voice a whisper.

“Oh.” Why hadn’t she known that? Kyana held out her hand. “May I see the scroll?”

Clotho looked as though Kyana had just asked to feel her up. “You’ve seen the damage it causes. No one touches this list.”

“Yeah, well, no one finds the key to Tartarus with an attitude like that.” Kyana thrust her hand closer.

With a look to her sisters, Clotho reluctantly handed over the scroll. Because she could sense the fragility of the wax-coated parchment, Kyana lightly gripped the corners and examined the smudged thumbprint. She raised the scroll to her face, ignoring the smell of dust and Clotho, and focused her attention on the print. She sniffed deeply, pleased to find it held exactly what Kyana had been hoping for. A scent. Something she could finally trace.

Carefully, she set the scroll on the altar before turning to Hank. “Treat that as if your life—all our lives—depends on it. Don’t touch it more than you have to.” Then remembering the black powder Geoff had had to hunt down, she added, “And try not to make a complete mess.”

When Hank reluctantly nodded, she returned her attention to the Sisters. “Let me see the lock again.”

No one said anything as Atropos dug through the same chest Clotho had opened and handed Kyana the obsidian lock they’d pulled out of Tartarus. Ignoring the freezing burn on her fingers, she sniffed it. The sulfuric odor on the lock constricted her throat. The odor was the same inhuman one she’d smelled on the island. She forced herself to hold the lock, to breathe in its scent, to search for an underlying smell. This one was different from the one on the scroll. Damn. She’d been hoping to find proof that whoever had seen that scroll had also opened Tartarus. They were dealing with more than one person.

Clinging to the new smell of sulfur and pheromones on the lock, she committed this one, and the one surrounding the print—an odd blend of tea and . . . bad cologne—to memory. Satisfied that she’d remember both, she set the lock beside the scroll. “Dust that too.”

Hank grumbled incoherently, not looking up from his task. His oversized hands cradled the wax-coated scroll as he gently copied the dusted print onto some tape, then pressed it to a card and stuck it into the makeshift tool kit Geoff had helped put together. The release of tension was palpable when he handed the scroll back to Clotho and turned his attention to the obsidian lock.

Now that the Sisters had their precious scroll back, Kyana tapped Ryker’s chest. “Give me Geoffrey’s list.”

Ryker’s gaze warned her to be respectful, but he placed the crumpled pages in her hand.

“You three know everyone within the Order, right?”

Lachesis nodded. She toyed with her braid. Her intense stare focused on Kyana. “When someone pledges loyalty to the Order, I read their intentions to make sure they’re pure. So yes, we know of everyone.”

“Can you tell us which names on this list are human-born?”

“Of course,” Atropos stated. “Why?”

“Because with any luck, a name on this list could match the owner of that fingerprint. It would help narrow down Hank’s search if we knew which names belong to people who actually
have
fingerprints.”

Clotho stepped forward. “Ryker, do you and Geoffrey also believe knowing the races of those on your list will assist you in capturing our traitor?”

Kyana bit her lip to keep from flinging a stinging insult at the Fate. She hated that they’d put her in charge of this mission, but didn’t trust her now to do the job. Insulting them wouldn’t gain their assistance, though, so she gritted her teeth and remained silent, while shooting deadly glares at Ryker and Geoff, daring either one of them to contradict her.

“We do,” Ryker answered.

“Very well, then.” Clotho held out her hand. “Let me see your list.”

Kyana set the pages on the altar. The Sisters leaned over it, conversing softly. Even though she stood only a few feet away, Kyana couldn’t make out the words. She looked to Ryker, saw him nodding, and knew he was privileged to their conversation. When she looked at Geoff, she found him watching her.

“How come we can’t hear them speaking?” Kyana whispered.

Geoff raised a dark brow. A slow grin teased his mouth. “Who says I can’t?”

“You can hear them?”

“I can’t,” Hank muttered.

Somehow, that the human couldn’t hear the Sisters didn’t make her feel a damned bit better.

“There are still about thirty names on your list, but more manageable than what you started with.” Atropos held the pages out to Kyana. “I also took the liberty of marking off those who have passed beyond your realm of questioning, as well as those who have stood before us recently and we know are still loyal to the Order.”

Kyana quickly scanned the list looking for one name. There was a golden mark next to Drake Mallone’s name indicating his race, but he had not been crossed off as a known loyal.

“Thank you, Sisters,” Ryker said, taking the list from Kyana and stuffing it back in his pocket. “We appreciate your assistance.”

“Kiss ass,” Kyana and Geoff hissed, earning them glares from the Fates and a chuckle from Hank.

With a grin, she nodded at the lock. “How’s it coming? Almost done?”

“Nada. I can salvage the one on the scroll, but there’s nothing on this.” He dropped the lock back to the altar and rubbed his hands on his jeans. “How can a chunk of rock cause frostbite in Florida . . . well, under Florida, or wherever we are?”

No one bothered to answer the question. They had the print on the scroll and needed to get to work finding its owner. “Let’s go,” Kyana said, starting for the entrance. “We’ve lost hours tonight. We only have about three left before sunrise.”

“You’re welcome.” Hank’s face was red, his hair sweaty. He looked like a man who’d just defused a bomb with half a second to spare.

“Thank you, Hank,” Ryker said, clasping the big man on the back.

“Don’t break out your pom-poms yet.” Gesturing for everyone to follow her back to the ferry, Kyana tossed a quick glance back at their nervous cop. “He still has to find us a match.”

Ryker waited for the others to move past him before following behind. His gaze steadily locked on the back of Hank’s head. This time, if he hesitated to get on the ferry, Ryker himself would toss the man on. They really didn’t have much time to waste.

Luckily, Hank seemed far less hesitant to step on the ferry this go-round. Heading
out
of death’s realm was loads easier than heading
into
it.

“You do know it’s not guaranteed that the owner of this print is in the system?” the cop said.

“I know.” Kyana stretched her arms over her head.

Ryker pulled a coin from his pocket and tossed it to Charon. The old spirit caught it, and it promptly vanished into thin air.

As Hank collapsed onto his backside and rubbed the back of his neck, he peered up at them, pale-faced. “You’re not going to kill me if I can’t trace it, right? You’ll know it’s not my fault?”

“We’re not the bad guys, Hank,” Kyana said. “I’d hoped you would have realized that by now.”

“Wow,” Geoffrey said, grinning. “Not going to take the piss out of him? No obvious enjoyment over the idea of killing him for no reason?”

Ryker had been thinking the same thing, but the way Geoffrey teased Kyana made a gnawing irritation simmer in Ryker’s gut. He swallowed it down, reminding himself that Geoffrey and Kyana had known each other for decades longer than he’d known either of them. Jealousy was a useless emotion, but it wasn’t easily dismissed.

Kyana shot Geoffrey a glare. “I’m just anxious to get this done so hopefully we’ll have somewhere to go from here.”

“Like bed?” Ryker said. His gaze fell to the hint of cleavage squishing out of the top of Kyana’s vest. Bits of debris dusted her long, black curls and a smudge of dirt stained her otherwise porcelain cheeks. She looked good disheveled. So good, in fact, it must have been written all over his face, because her eyes darkened when his stare locked on hers.

Ryker cleared his throat, aware, suddenly, that Geoffrey and Hank were watching, amused. “To sleep, I mean.”

Hank sneezed, jolting Ryker out of his wide-awake wet dream. “Sorry,” Hank said, digging a tissue from his back pocket and blowing his nose. “Can’t seem to get that smell out of my head.”

Kyana’s gaze finally pulled away from Ryker’s. “What smell?”

“The one in that cave. No idea what it was, but it was driving me crazy. Think it messed with my sinuses.”

“I hate that damned cauldron,” she muttered. “You guys didn’t seem disturbed by it. You smell it when you go there, don’t you?”

Geoffrey nodded.

Ryker shrugged. “I didn’t use to. Started smelling it a few years ago, though.”

“Do you know what it is?”

The ferry jolted to a stop. Kyana obviously wasn’t ready for it and nearly toppled over the side. Ryker grabbed her by the arm and kept her on her feet. “I don’t know what it is in particular, no. It’s different for everyone,” he said, helping her from the boat. “But supposedly, it’s like liquid contentment.”

The entire troupe stopped walking, all eyes on Ryker. Even know-it-all Geoffrey was interested in what Ryker had to say.

“If you can smell it,” Ryker continued, “you’re lacking the one thing that will make you truly content in this world. Clotho makes it and inserts it with the souls she places into bodies. It gives the soul something to search for while it lives. A mission to complete, so to speak.”

A mission he hadn’t found until he’d met Kyana ten years ago. Since then, that smell had been just as strong for him as it seemed to be for others. That pull to her Lychen half, that desire that ate up his insides like wildfire, had crept up on him instantly and made him susceptible to what lay in that brew. His life’s mission . . . incomplete now that he’d met Kyana.

No way he’d tell her that, though. She was already commitment shy. If he told her he knew they were destined to be life mates, she’d run from him and never look back.

“So if you don’t smell it . . .”

Ryker swallowed. “Then whatever it is you were meant to find has found you. You should be content . . . or dead.”

Or left to spend eternity completely miserable and alone.

Y
ou should be content.

Kyana pondered that statement all the way back through Below. She liked her life. A lot. That was contentment, right? So why could she smell whatever was in that cauldron? It wasn’t exactly a subject she considered often, if at all. She lived, hunted, ate, bathed. That pretty much summed up all her desires. Except sex, of course, but that was becoming as scarce these days as human blood in her drinks.

That particular thought sent her gaze roaming over Ryker’s backside as he led the way down the street toward the portal alcove that would take them back into St. Augustine. Her blood heated, briefly taking the chill from her skin. Ah, sex. How she missed it.

And what about him, anyway? He’d said he’d only started smelling it a few years ago. What had changed for him? What had cost him his contentment?

They stepped through the portal into the fort where Farrel and Crag waited loyally beside Geoffrey’s minions, Larkin and Cahir. Ryker eyeballed them. “What are they doing here?”