Blood Diamond (13 page)

I flinched at another round of gunfire and the ping of ricocheting bullets. “The passengers must be freaking out over all this noise.”

“I’ll be surprised if they’ve heard anything. Zach’s had the place soundproofed. The cranes are noisy, and it wouldn’t do to disturb the guests.” Brandon pressed his hand against my forehead. “You’re still clammy. At this rate, Zach’ll have legitimate reason to call in a lift to get you out of here. You’re still dilated all to hell, too.”

Stiffening at the thought of flying over water, I hissed, “There is no way anyone is flying me over the ocean in a fucking helicopter.”

Brandon’s eyes widened at my cursing. “Okay, okay. I got it. No helicopters. How is it that you own a cruise liner you use for smuggling and vacation on at least four times a year, but you can’t handle a helicopter? Aren’t you a pilot?”

“I don’t own the cruise liner.”

Brandon snorted. “You own those who do. Same difference.”

“Life jackets and scuba gear,” I replied in the most dignified tone I could manage, considering the circumstances. “I’m also less likely to die on impact with the ocean on a cruise ship. If I don’t drown, I’m okay.”

Shaking his head, Brandon sighed. “I thought all of you pilot types enjoyed mimicking birds.”

“Just because I can fly a plane doesn’t mean I like it. I got my license so I could if needed. And anyway, flying over land isn’t the same as flying over water.”

“Only because you sink instead of swim,” Brandon countered.

“Water likes me. The feeling isn’t mutual. I’m trusting you not to let Zach fly me off this boat, okay?”

“Relax, Boss. I got your back. Let’s get deeper into the maze so we don’t get caught in the crossfire. I wish we had a phone or a radio.”

“Ditto,” I muttered. “It’d be nice to know who the friends and foes are. Let me guess, no weapons this run?”

“We’re legit; profitable for what it is, but all legal. A cargo rig broke down and we picked up part of their load. And yes, we scrubbed every bit of it before we brought it on board, so don’t worry about that,” Brandon said.

I worried anyway. “When did you get contacted about the load?”

“Monday afternoon.”

“Monday? What is it with this week?” Groaning at the thought that there was somehow a connection between the cargo and everything else going on, I staggered back to my feet. With Brandon leading the way, we made it to the
Wave Dream
’s hull.

“Good question, Boss. We can access the catwalk if we climb the nets and crates here; they’ll hold your weight. We used Max to test it, and he’s got more muscle than you do.”

“You’re expecting a lot,” I muttered, eying the step-stacked cargo doubtfully. While the drugs had worn off enough I could function, I suspected I’d pass out the instant the adrenaline rush faded.

“I’ll help you up, no worries there.”

“Oh, believe me, Brandon. I’m worried.”

~~*~~

Bursts of gunfire punctuated our climb to the catwalk, and by the time we reached the top, I was shaking, bathed in sweat, and ready to collapse. I leaned against a pallet gasping for breath while Brandon scoped out the rest of the cargo bay from our vantage point.

I sank down in the relative safety of several crates. “How does it look?”

“Like a madhouse.”

“What’s going on?”

“There are a bunch of wolves, a handful of folks smart enough to be wearing body armor, at least one witch, and some ragtag group armed to the teeth with enough firepower to punch big holes in the hull if they’re not careful, and they’re all duking it out. How the hell did they get that shit on board?” Brandon joined me in my hiding spot. “I saw the braid bitch, too.”

I groaned. “Wonderful. What was she doing?”

“Hanging from a pulley hook. Her boot’s in the jaws of the biggest damned Fenerec I’ve ever seen, and it looked like she was about ten seconds from a very bloody end,” Brandon reported, sounding rather pleased with the situation.

The mental image made me shudder. “Wonderful.”

“I bet we could make our way to the center if we’re careful.”

“And I bet we’ll get hit with ricochet.”

“Possible,” my partner in crime admitted.

“So much for not having violence on the ship. The armor’s likely on Inquisitors. Are they carrying Berettas?”

“Looked like it to me.”

“Standard issue for them. The others are probably part of the group who killed the team I was with along with an entire pack of Fenerec.”

“Ah, the same people who took out your brother’s truck? Damn.”

I chuckled. “The truck was all me.”

“What?”

“I needed a distraction, and I wasn’t about to try to drive a weapon-loaded vehicle into an ambush that I knew about,” I replied, dragging myself up so I could peer over the crates.

The first thing to catch my eye was the woman with her hangman’s noose clinging to a crane hook not far away. One of her boots was missing, and it was held in the teeth of a red wolf that wasn’t much smaller than a car.

The wolf’s jade and gold eyes glowed. While she was far larger than I remembered, I recognized Evelyn.

With a shrill scream, the woman reached down with her free hand, pulling a gun from her boot. Evelyn snarled, snapping her teeth before leaping up at her prey. With a swipe of her paw, she batted the crane hook and sent it swinging over the cargo bay. Coiled around the hook several times, the woman’s braided noose swayed back and forth.

Evelyn waited, ears cocked back, for the woman to swing back within her reach. Jumping more than twice her height, Evelyn caught hold of the woman’s bare foot, burying her fangs in deep. With a vicious jerk, Evelyn dropped back down on top of one of the shipping containers without letting go of her prey. Blood gushed from the gaping rends in the woman’s foot.

The noose bounced in the struggle between wolf and woman, and as though someone guided it with unerring accuracy, it settled over the crazed woman’s neck.

Her screams cut off when she lost hold of the hook and Evelyn yanked her down.

The woman’s name was Scarlett Svedberg Swann, and as the last of her life died away, I felt her surprise, terror, and dismay.

Pain lanced down my neck and spine. The last thing I saw was Evelyn savaging Scarlett’s corpse while pulling her down from where she hung, killed by her own noose.

Chapter Seven

The spirits of those I had murdered clung to me, clawing away at me in their need for vengeance. I knew their names, but there were so many of them their identities slipped through my hands like falling rain.

My name was Scarlett, and there would be no peace for me in death. I had been killed as I had killed, and the ghosts of my victims wanted what remained of my soul.

~Dante,~
they whispered, their nails once again tearing at me.

The name confused me. I was Scarlett, and like them, I was dead.

~No,~
the ghosts insisted.

Their denial baffled me. I was Scarlett. I was dead. Why were they disputing those facts? The shock of agony in my foot had been followed by a jerk at my neck and numbness. The disbelief that I had been killed by a mere dog lingered. I had slipped into the final darkness without so much as a ripple, unable to do anything to save myself.

~No.~

Their denial ignited my anger. When their insubstantial, frigid claws tore into me, I struggled to escape them.

How could I fight them off? They could move. I couldn’t. My helplessness, fear, and uncertainty surged as the dead surrounded me. A torrent of names washed over me, smothering me with their countless numbers, and I was powerless to stop them.

~Dante,~
they howled.

My name was Scarlett… wasn’t it?

Doubt and confusion clouded my mind. I searched for the memories proving who I was and found nothing beyond the brief flash of pain, dismay, and shock of my death.

The spirits clawed and hacked away at me until nothing remained but their presence crowding in around me, their voices swelling in intensity. They were the violent waves of the ocean pounding away at me, the crumbling shore.

If I wasn’t Scarlett, who was I?

I didn’t have an answer, and that frightened me even more than the chilling presence of the ghosts cocooning me. Was I doomed to float in the darkness, lost without identity or memory for the rest of eternity? I considered the problem with a numb sense of detachment, which was interrupted by the howls of the unseen phantoms flitting around me.

~Dante,~
they hissed in demand.
~Dante, Dante, Dante.~

With each repetition of the name, the weight of their presence grew, clinging to my shoulders and dragging me deeper into a maelstrom of emotion and memory. But whose memory? Dante’s? Who was Dante? Why was he important?

The spirits snarled their frustration. I was a rock beneath a waterfall of names, and Dante was but one of them cascading around me.

Through the cacophony of voices, one rang out over the rest, screaming,
~Dante Jackson Emmett Anderson!~

Her voice, speaking a true name—mine—severed me from Scarlett and her death. In the darkness, I caught a glint of green, but before I could remember what was so important about the color, the other spirits once again closed in on me, separating me from Scarlett.

The shock of realization left me helpless in the grip of the dead, who chanted my name in endless repetition.

My name was Dante Jackson Emmett Anderson, and I hadn’t been the one to die. I knew the names of the dead, and in turn, they knew mine. It was the first time they had spoken to me, breaking through the barrier separating the living and the dead. The spirits shrieked their triumph, singing my name. Fragments of memory returned. I was five again, and the first true name I had learned belonged to the family dog. We had called him Jiffy, thanks to my twin’s love of peanut butter. I couldn’t pronounce Jiffy’s name; it was too growly and deep for me to mimic and also included the way he cocked his yellow, floppy ear.

My life didn’t flash before me; I lazily drifted from memory to memory, carried along on a tide I couldn’t fight against. It was easier to go with the flow than try to resist its embrace. The spirits were swept up with me, latching onto each fragment and thrusting them at me until I claimed each and every one of them.

Some things I didn’t want to remember, including the way my mother and father had turned on me, casting me out of the Anderson family for the sin of having been born a witch, thus forcing the mantle of Shadow Pope onto my younger brother. My life with Suzanne was forged, tempered, and stripped from me. All of the things Zachary hated about her were forced on me until my anguish was as strong as my grief.

Who had I become to please Suzanne?

The ghosts sighed and whispered my name.

When I arrived at my last memory, it was a junction: who I was met who I had been, both waiting to see who I would become. Countless paths stretched before me, mine to choose. In the tangle of memories and possibilities, I remembered what it felt like to die, and the sensation of the eternal darkness closing in on me repulsed me. When I recoiled from it, the spirits howled their jubilation.

They once again enveloped me, clawing away at my memories of Scarlett’s death until all that remained was a discomfort I could bear. No matter how deep they scored me, they couldn’t dig out the truth of Evelyn’s involvement. I could still hear her snarls and see the rage in her wolf-touched, jade eyes.

The thought of the woman both distressed and calmed me. I couldn’t deny the viciousness of her attack or the brutality of Scarlett’s demise. It should have frightened me. I shouldn’t have been awed by her, yet I was. She had been primal rage and lethal huntress mated together. Fenerec weren’t supposed to be larger than horses. Evelyn dwarfed the other wolves I had seen, transcending them in the way that angels rose far above mere men. Part of me wanted to believe the red-furred Fenerec was someone else. I couldn’t believe it; no one else had Evelyn’s eyes or the wild red of her hair, so much like a fox’s.

Sharp pain tore me from my thoughts, depositing me in an aching body. The brief flares of agony centered on my left ear. My recognition of the source gave me the strength to turn my head. Something soft but unrelenting pressed against my cheek. It took me several tedious moments to sift through the sensations and determine someone was holding me still and pinching my earlobe.

Muffled voices spoke over my head, but their words had no meaning for me. Another pinch broke my concentration, and I found the strength to jerk away from the annoyance.

The conversation died away, and for a panicked moment, I thought I had sank back into the darkness.

“I think he’s coming around,” Brandon said, his voice distant. There was something wrong about my friend’s voice and his words. I realized he was relieved, and that concerned me. What had worried him? Me?

It took a frightening amount of effort to piece together what had happened, which led to new worries. Who was he speaking to? We had been alone when I—no, when Scarlett—had died. I fought to open my eyes, but heavy weights held them closed. I tried to wiggle my fingers and toes, but I had no way of knowing if they acknowledged their subservience to my will. My anxiety grew. The murmur of nearby conversation distracted me, and the low, soft-spoken tone of Zachary at his angriest focused my attention on what was going on around me.

He sounded willing and ready to throw someone overboard, and that alarmed me almost as much as Brandon’s relief.

The mumbling continued around me, incomprehensible until Brandon snapped, “Enough. Until we know what sort of fucking drugs she pumped into him, none of us knows anything. I told you once, I told you twice, and I’m telling you again: he was coherent and mobile until we got up here and dropped like he’d been tapped in the forehead.”

Tapped, I was pleased to remember, was a polite way of saying shot. While the memory of Scarlett injecting me was about as hazy as my recollections of staggering through the cargo bay with Brandon, I was relieved. It hadn’t been the drugs that had knocked me out, but I doubted even my brother would believe me if I told him that I had been caught up in Scarlett’s death.