Cast Into Darkness (33 page)

She blinked the strong sunlight from her eyes. Life bloomed all around her. From the large ants crawling across the terra-cotta tiles of the teleport pattern underneath her feet to the small dots of the fishermen on the boats out to sea, to Kristof, sunglasses on, leaning against the whitewashed wall of Melina’s cottage and toying with something in his pocket. She felt each organism’s life force, a faint shadow through her magical senses, like the beating of a drum.
Huh. A side effect of my connection with primal magic?

A connection that gave her the power to take life, as well as feel it.

The anger drained from her. Dread rose up instead. She turned to Kristof.

“Take me back to my oh-so-cozy prison cell. Anywhere but here.”

He joined her on the tiles and tapped out a teleport spell. She watched, trying to fix it in her memory, while she took his arm and the power seized them both. They were whisked back to her room.

As they materialized on the Turkish rug, Kristof pulled his arm away and backed up, his hand rubbing his bicep.

Kate’s eyes narrowed. What was wrong with him? Twitchy, yeah, but the backlash wouldn’t account for the way he kept his sunglasses on, his reaction to her hand on his.

He was hurt.

She sat on the bench against the wall. He joined her, sitting close enough that she could sense the tension in his taut back, his rigid shoulders. She scooted away. He slid his sunglasses off his face and leaned his head into his hands.

“Get in a fight?” she asked.

“Something like that.”

A vicious satisfaction rose up in her. “Victor?”

“No.”

“Don’t they heal you—”

“Things will go much easier for you around here if you stop asking questions.”

She flushed. “Just tell me when the hell I’m going home.”

He started to reply, then paused, his eyes so lost, the way they had been back at the beach when he’d touched her face and said her name.

“Kristof…please. Tell me what your sister is doing.”

He didn’t reply.

Was there anything at all of the guy she’d loved inside him? Or was that man an illusion he’d cast, one as carefully crafted as his preppy Kris Stevens haircut? How could she get through to him?

He wasn’t Kris. No matter how her pulse raced when he sat next to her, he wasn’t her college boyfriend. He was her family’s enemy.

But had she imagined how he sat a little nearer to her than he needed to? How he touched her more than he had to? The intensity when his eyes met hers?

She didn’t think so. How much of Kris was in Kristof?

She remembered so many of the things they’d said to each other. Stories of their families, their lives growing up, their hopes and dreams. Had everything he’d said been a lie? Or had some or it, maybe the most important parts, been as true as the confidences she had told him? Only one way to tell.

“You once said you needed to stand up to your family. Learn where to draw the line. Was that true? Or just part of the Game?” She held her breath.

“No. That was true.”

“Then maybe this is one of those times when you should.”

His eyes held hers for a long moment. Then he tapped out a spell, one she’d come to know well. A cloak. After its purple iridescence covered them, his shoulders relaxed.

“Things are complicated—more complicated than you can imagine. But I’m trying to get you out of here. Away from my sister. From my father.”

“Why would you—”

“Why do you think?” He reached out and brushed her hair away from her forehead.

“No, no, you don’t really… You can’t have done the things you did and feel anything for me. You—”

He leaned forward, and his lips on hers, warm and insistent, caused the very core of her to soften. He drew her into his arms and winced as her body met his.

Then he pulled her closer.

His hands were gentle where Dmitri’s were rough, his lips asked instead of took. Heat rose through her, flushing her skin. When they broke apart she felt dizzy for a moment, like she had the very first time they’d kissed, outside her apartment on Linden Street. “Kris…
Kris
…”

No. It didn’t matter how her body responded to his familiar touch. His name wasn’t Kris, and she couldn’t trust him. Not after what he’d done.

But no need to tell him that.

“What’s your plan to get me out of here?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Melina’s not going to free me, is she? No matter what the Rules say.”

Kristof’s silence provided all the answer she needed.

“Why? You have the stone. You don’t need me.”

“You’re much more valuable than you know.”

“The primal magic stuff? I can’t control it. She told you that, didn’t she? What use is it? Kristof, please…just tell me what the hell’s going on. You owe me that much, at least.”

Kristof ran his fingers up and down the arm of his sunglasses. He set them on the bench. Then, “Melina needs to understand how your primal magic works in order to get the stone to create…a weaponized caster. Someone who can use death magic as a tool of untraceable assassination.”

“What…the…
hell
?”

“Think about it. A primal magic caster, completely in control of what the power takes, could cast whatever spell he wanted—destroy a family’s security grid, kill a bodyguard, assassinate a pawn. After, instead of spending days in a straightjacket, he could direct the magic to take an enemy’s life instead.”

Is he telling the truth? Is that the Makrises’ plan for the stone? Use it to create a living weapon?

“I can’t control the power. So what do you need me for?”

“That…depends.”

“On?”

“What happens next. What your family does, if they keep the terms of the truce we negotiated long enough for me to—”

“My family?” She grabbed him. “Did you see them, talk to them? Are they—”

He rubbed his arm. “Your father sends his love. I—”

His eyes jerked up and got a faraway look in them, just as Victor’s did whenever he checked the security grid. He launched himself to his feet and strode to the door. “Something’s wrong. Sit tight. And no matter what happens, trust me.” The door shut behind him, the purple traces of his cloak spell vanishing.

Trust him? Not likely.

She got up from the bench and ran to the door, testing it, hoping beyond hope he’d left it unlocked. No such luck. Dammit. She slammed it with the heel of her hand, then gasped when the metal from the cuff bit into her.

There had to be some way she could get out of here before Melina did whatever she had planned.

Kate paced in front of the door, the rug warm underneath her feet. Melina’s story about the stone wanting to possess her was probably bull. A tale intended to convince Kate to cooperate long enough for Melina to achieve her goals. No, Kate had to be right about what the stone wanted—to finish making her into a primal magic caster. One who could control her power. That made sense with what Kristof had told her.

Or Melina’s tale could contain enough truth that ignoring it might be lethal. The magic inside her felt hungry. It wanted her. That much she couldn’t deny.

But Melina wanted the stone to make someone else into a primal magic caster. Would the stone have to finish making Kate one first? Or—the room felt so much colder all of a sudden—would Melina just kill her?

A
boom
rocked the air. The building shook, and plaster rained down from the ceiling, dotting her shirt with little white sprinkles. What the hell was going on? Had Dad sent a rescue operation?

If he had, the Makrises would send someone to guard her. And it wouldn’t necessarily be Kristof.

She scanned the room, looking for something, anything, she could use to get the drop on a caster and run as fast and as far as she could. Maybe far enough to find the hypothetical Hamilton strike team.

There. On the bookshelf, tucked in the end of a row of books. A small brass figurine of some Greek god. Good enough for her needs if she hit her guard hard enough and in just the right place. She grabbed the figurine and hid behind the heavy curtains by the door.

Another
boom
. A streak of fire, barely visible through the high window by her bed.
Something
was happening.

After a minute, the door whirled and clicked, its heavy wood hiding her from the intruder’s sight. She held her breath.

Dmitri. Soccer jersey hanging over cargo pants, neck swathed in silver chains, barely shaven. He stepped into the room, his head turned away from her. “Kate?”

She targeted the vulnerable point at the base of his neck and struck.

Kristof raced down
the wide stone hallway toward the central plaza. He passed Dmitri and tried to flag him down, but he waved Kristof away. His phone buzzed, the estate’s alarm system sounded, and the monitor spells he’d set on the security grid sent urgent alerts screaming in his ears like the high-pitched whine of a wake-up call he couldn’t turn off.

He grabbed his phone. “What?”

Anton’s voice. “We’re under attack. Tracking spells show several operatives, unknown origin, at the west gate, the main house, and on approach to the dock to Melina’s island.”

Not unknown. Hamilton. How the hell did they breach security?

He’d have to worry about that later. They were after the stone, and Kate. The rest of the attacks were diversions.

“Where’s Papa?”

“The main house. He’s leading the defense there.”

“Good. Concentrate your forces on the island. I’ll meet you.”

“Got it.”

He hit Melina’s number. Nothing.
Dammit
. She had to drop her teleport block, just for him. She couldn’t stand up to a Hamilton strike force alone.

He stuck his phone back in his pocket as he burst out into the plaza.

Outside, the sky lit up with bursts of fire. The air rippled with trails of kinetic-punch spells. Kristof dodged right to avoid one of his father’s bodyguards as the man slammed against the side of the main house, his chest torn open, blood pouring down the front of his shirt.

A blaze of green fire from one of his cousin’s hands shot across the dimming sky. It hit its target and tore the enemy’s cloaking spell off in an explosion of blue sparks. The impact sent the revealed operative flying across the plaza and into one of his father’s prize cedar trees. Her wail of pain joined the rise and fall of the estate’s alarms.

A sonic spell buzzed by his head, and a blue urn that had been in his family for generations shattered behind him. A shard spun by his ear to slice through his shirt and into his shoulder, the blood splattering his cheek.

He ran on.

He caught a glimpse now and then of the enemy when a hit from a Makris spell ripped their cloaks away. They were clad in form-fitting gray battle suits, almost invisible in the twilight, talismans lined up in a row on their chests, deadly in their efficiency. He recognized a Hamilton operative he’d fought in Paris last year as a lightning bolt tore the guy’s cloak spell apart and sent him crashing into the garden wall. No question now—the Hamiltons.

He didn’t have time to deal with this diversion. The Hamiltons were after the stone, and he couldn’t let them get it. Besides, they might get lucky and take out his father. He could always hope.

Melina’s island. The enemy attack would focus there, and so must he. The din behind him receded as he approached the docks that provided the one way in or out. The mist rising from the water gave his movements a natural cloak. The only sound besides the crickets chirping and the gentle creaking of the two boats tied to the dock was the quiet pad of someone else’s footsteps in the sea grass. Then nothing.

Probably a Hamilton operative. Anton would have texted me if he’d made it here.

Kristof circled around the side of the dock, using it for extra cover. He had to assume the enemy knew how to get to Melina’s cliff-top Sanctum—they’d be making straight for the skiffs. If he moved fast, he could cut them off.

He tapped out a quick cloak spell to keep him on even ground with the enemy, making his chant as quiet as possible.
Damn
. He needed a couple of talismans to take on a team of operatives, but his father had left him with nothing but his ring. He’d have to take the backlash and deal with it.

A deep breath, then another, seeing movement in every shadow until his mind quieted. He rose above the waving reeds and climbed up onto the wooden platform of the dock, its splinters scoring the still-tender skin of his hands. He crawled along the dock until he reached the first boat, a small skiff bobbing silently on the water. He slipped inside, crawled under a tarp that lay in the back, and prepared his spells. A shield spell, cast now. Then his attack spells, racking them up one by one in the back of his mind, ready to cast.

The boat wobbled—once, then again. Two operatives. If they took the boat and left, with him in tow, he would lose any chance of Anton and his men arriving in time to help. He needed to act.

He estimated the position of the operatives from the movement of the boat and rose from the tarp to strike.

Three kinetic knives rippled from his hands and sliced through the air. Sparks flew when they hit a Hamilton operative’s cloak spell and tore it away, cutting into his glowing blue shield and knocking him back. The tall man toppled over the side of the boat, shock turning his face as gray as his battle suit. Kristof barely registered the splash of the man’s impact before he let his next spell off, a lightning bolt aimed a few feet to the right, where the number two caster would likely stand.

A hit. The bolt sizzled away both the cloak and the shield spell, its charge eating up all the azure power of the shield spell in a blast that lit up the water. A girl, short-cropped hair mussed from the fight, eyes wide, stood revealed. Her hands reached for a talisman on her chest.

He had to get his next spell off before—

A kinetic punch slammed into Kristof, barreling through his defensive spells and throwing him half in, half out of the little skiff, his back slamming painfully against the boat. He got to his feet, the boat shifting under him.
Another operative. Damn, damn. Where…