Dark Sins and Desert Sands (15 page)

“And you knew this?” Ray asked.

Layla shook her head quickly, violently. “No. I’d never willingly help Seth create another monster and I’d never help him use someone else the way he’s used
me. When I found out what he was doing to you, I demanded your release.”

Layla trailed off, not wanting to tell him how Seth had laughed at her demand. She’d refused to interrogate Ray anymore and promised to defy Seth until he was forced to return her to the desert sand from whence she’d come. So he’d done just that. He’d taken her memories from her and buried every desire she’d ever had.

It almost comforted Seth that so many of the old gods were without power and influence in the world, because if they knew just how many ways his minion had betrayed him, their mocking laughter would go on for eternity. Layla had been
here
. He could smell her deceit in every crevice of this cabin. How many years had it taken his clever little sphinx to find a remote spot like this one and squirrel away supplies? To set up a safe house like this one meant that she must have been planning to run away from him even before her heart softened toward Rayhan Stavrakis. It meant she’d been planning her escape even before he decided to destroy her memory. It was a shame he only had the power to bury memories, not read them, or he might have predicted this.

Seth found a Hello Kitty phone tossed haphazardly on the bed, no doubt hastily ditched so that the authorities couldn’t track them. The bed looked rumpled and slept-in, which made Seth scowl. It wasn’t like Layla to leave her bedsheets askew. Had she shared this bed with the minotaur? No, surely not. He put the horrifying thought out of his mind at once, then stooped down to survey the wreckage.

Glass shards and wood splinters littered the floor, and a broken lamp lay sprawled like a corpse. It looked like there’d been some kind of violence here, perhaps a fight. Now
that
was an idea more to his liking. It would be inconvenient if his all-but-immortal sphinx managed to kill his very mortal minotaur, but it was hard for him not to delight in imagining what would have been a powerful clash between the two.

The war god heard a sound at the door, and he thrilled at the notion he might have captured his quarry after all. Perhaps she’d not abandoned the cabin, merely gone for supplies or returned from burying the minotaur’s body. Oh, it would be so sweet to capture Layla and not just because of the way he’d enjoy crushing her beneath his thumb. It also meant that he’d win the wager with
Xochiquetzal
. With the promise of victory humming through his veins, Seth stalked silently toward the entryway, positioning himself so that he could take his prey by surprise.

The door opened and just as he reached to grab her, he saw a flash of the woman’s hair. It was a wild tangle of brown curls, not Layla’s jet-black mane.

“You!” Seth growled, grabbing her by the wrist.

“You!” Isabel said at the same moment, whirling to face him.

They stared at each other for a moment, then he let go of her as if he’d caught a serpent by the tail. He was stunned to find her so close on his trail. He’d used all his government connections to get here ahead of the authorities. “How did you find this cabin?”

“You have your minions,
Papi,
” she said with an enigmatic smile. “And I have mine.”

Seth glanced out the picture window where several
butterflies danced on the wind, but he had difficulty believing that the winged creatures were as effective as global positioning satellites. “Layla’s not here.”

“Qué lástima,”
Isabel said with a heartfelt sigh, then walked to the sliding glass door. “You can see the whole of the Mojave from here. It looks so barren….”

“You’d be surprised at how much life you can find in a desert.”

“Tell me about the desert you ruled, Seth. Were you very powerful?”

“I’m still powerful,” he said through gritted teeth.

“But lonely,” Isabel replied.

It was true that the modern world was a lonely place for war gods. The violence remained but the glory was gone. It was chaos that thrilled Seth, so he also despaired of the modern mortal obsession with laws. Men even tried to fashion rules for war; it was exhausting to subvert those rules and unbearable that he should have to. To whom could he turn for solace? Could Isabel understand?

“And you? What did the Queen of Whores rule?”

“A verdant jungle teeming with beauty,” she said, turning back toward him so that he could see her eyes light up to remember. “There were tribal festivals in my honor, where the silversmiths would come to ply their trade. The weavers and the sculptors would come, too. All the people who created things loved me. But especially the prostitutes who danced with flowers in their hair…”

“I heard they’d sacrifice a girl and flay her skin off her body in tribute to you,” Seth said, for he knew more about her than he’d admitted. “That sounds like something I would have enjoyed. Did you?”

“No.” Isabel scowled. “The mortals seem to always get it wrong and lead the religion astray.”

He enjoyed having wiped the smile off her face. In fact, he enjoyed the sparring altogether too much. “Those days are gone now, Isabel, but if you must live amongst the mortals why take such a menial job?”

“Helping people is never menial,” Isabel said. “I’m studying to become a sex therapist. Working for Layla was good clinical training.”

“A
sex therapist,
” he said, a bitter taste in his mouth. If she must feed off sex, why not become a celebrity starlet? Why not own a pornographic media empire? “How can you disgrace yourself? Aren’t you better than this?”

“Better than what?” Isabel said with a teasing grin, leaning back against the window so that the light radiated around her curvaceous form. “Better than you? I think I am. I think I’ll find Layla before you do, and then we’ll see who is a disgrace.”

I fly in the air

And rarely touch the earth

Men die for me

Protecting home and hearth

I
n all the years Ray had been fighting under its flag, he’d never seen much of the nation of his birth. Now, driving cross-country with Layla, he was mesmerized by its beauty. The reds and browns of the desert and mountains faded into the plains states and their amber waves of grain. By the time they got to Topeka, Kansas, there was nobody on the road and he’d never seen so many stars in the sky.

“It’s sooo good,” Layla said, with a sensual moan. She literally writhed in the passenger seat, her well-manicured fingers flexing around her soda bottle with pleasure.

She’d been doing that with every bite of the cookie Ray had picked up for her in a convenience store and her enthusiasm was starting to turn him on. He glanced over in time to see her licking chocolate from her fingers in a way that made him twitch. She aroused him so easily, under any circumstance, without even trying. Maybe especially when she wasn’t trying.

For as long as he’d known her, she’d been a serious woman, but now she started laughing. It reminded him of how she’d sputtered with joy in the bathroom of that crappy little motel when she’d first touched him. The pleasure of the memory—of being touched in a way that didn’t bring pain—set him off balance. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s just that I can’t believe I’ve gone two years without eating anything sweeter than a bran muffin!” Her laughter cut off suddenly, and she stammered, “Oh—oh, Ray. I’m sorry. Next to what you’ve been through…”

“Don’t do that,” he said. It’s true that he’d spent two years eating any slop they shoved through the slats of his prison cell, but she’d been in a kind of prison, too. He was glad she was finally free of it. “Don’t walk on eggshells like you pity me, Layla, or like you think I’m going to explode at any moment.”

“Okay,” she said, offering him a bite of the dessert as a peace offering. “Do you want some?”

“No, thanks. I’m not big on sweets unless it’s my mother’s baklava. The way she brushes the phyllo dough with butter and spices the nuts… My whole family goes crazy for it.”

Layla stared at him. “What’s it like to have a family?” It was an odd question, and his expression
must have said so, because she explained, “When I didn’t have my memories, I always hoped that there was a family out there somewhere looking for me. Now I know that I don’t have parents. I don’t have siblings or children. Just Seth.”

“What’s it like having family?” Ray repeated, struggling for an answer. “It’s like asking someone what it’s like to have an arm or a leg. You can explain what it’s like to lose it, but you take it for granted when you have one.”

“They must be so worried about you.”

Ray was pretty sure that his family couldn’t be more worried about him than he was about
them
. It had to have been terrible for them when he just disappeared. How much worse it must be now with his picture all over the news, every other commentator calling him a terrorist. “It kills me to think of what my nephews must be thinking about me right now.”

Layla offered him a sip of her soda and this time he took it. “Ray, I’m sure their parents tell them that you’re a good man.”

“They don’t have parents,” Ray explained, the familiar ache in his chest. “Their mother died in childbirth.”

“She was your sister?”

“My sister-in-law. When Ayisha died, my brother just— He’d never been the most stable guy, okay? He went off his meds and he got it into his head that the boys would be better off without him. So he checked out.”

“He abandoned them?”

Ray worked his jaw. “He killed himself, Layla.”

They drove in silence for a little while, and he
thought maybe she’d let that be the end of it, but instead, she said, “Was he in therapy?”

“You really think that would have made a damned bit of difference? Some people just can’t hack it.”

“You sound angry at your brother.”

“I guess I am. I guess I think he was a fucking coward to leave two little kids behind like that…not to mention what it did to my parents. My mother thinks that his soul is burning for eternity. The day of my brother’s funeral, my father said he didn’t believe in God anymore. He said he’d never step foot in another mosque again and he never has.”

“What about what your brother’s suicide did to you?”

Ray shifted in his seat. “Stop being a shrink.”

“I’m not asking as your therapist. I’m asking because I care about you. I want to know.”

“You want to know what his suicide did to me? It kept me from bashing my skull open against the metal walls of that dungeon. There were days when killing myself seemed like the only way I was ever going to get out of that coffin, but I just kept thinking about my brother and how two little boys were going to spend their lives wondering why they weren’t good enough for him to stick around.”

“Is that what you think? That you weren’t good enough to keep him here in this life?”

Ray would have glared at her, but he was too afraid to take his eyes off the road and too afraid she’d see the truth of it in his features. He’d spent his whole life trying to prove he was good enough. A good enough brother and son to keep his family together. A good enough friend that Jack shouldn’t have lost his shit in
Afghanistan. A good enough soldier that his country should have loved him, too.

“Maybe you should call your family,” Layla suggested. “I have a few phones that’d be hard to trace….”

“Save ’em. We might need them.”

“What about a pay phone?” Layla asked. “There’s one right there.”

Leave it to Kansas to still be using old-fashioned phone booths in this age of Hello Kitty devices. Ray could call home. Just one call. It might be the last chance he’d ever have to hear their voices. He could just let them know that what they were hearing on the news wasn’t true. Maybe he could even ask them to look for Missy in case he didn’t find her at the Scorpion Group offices.

As the silver glint of the phone booth beckoned him to the side of the road, Ray jerked the truck to the shoulder, put it in Park and slammed the door when he got out. If he took the time to think better of this, he might change his mind.

He was in the phone booth within three long strides and had yanked the door closed behind him before he even knew what he was doing.

He should have known better.

As soon as he heard the metal close upon its latch, the air went out of his lungs. It was one of those old-fashioned booths with a phone book on a long chain, but for Ray, he was in the dark, alone and suffocating on the stench of his own sweat and urine. When he’d forced himself to climb into the shower with Layla, he’d been concentrating on helping
her
. Now Ray couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. He just started punching in a blind fury. He heaved with his shoulder, like some kind
of creature bursting out of a shell. Something shattered beneath his fist. Something else screeched and warped, cutting him with its jagged edge. In blind terror he found a fist full of wires and pulled. More glass shattered and the whole frame of the booth creaked in collapse. The next thing he knew, he was scrambling his way out of the wreckage, safety glass crunching beneath his feet as blood dripped down both arms.

“Ray!” Layla put both hands over her face. “Are you okay?”

He was anything
but
okay. He was shaking all over, covered in sweat, yet cold as ice. His attacks were getting worse and worse. What if he couldn’t stop it? What if next time, he was so blinded with panic he hurt somebody—somebody who didn’t deserve to be hurt? Dazed, Ray stumbled to the truck, and Layla was at his elbow steadying him as he gasped for air.

“Layla, you gotta tell me something…”

“Count your breaths,” Layla said calmly, her cool hand on his cheek.

One. Two. Three…
Fuck if it didn’t actually help. Or maybe it was her.

“You gotta tell me, Layla—” he broke off trying to catch his breath.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but not until you calm down.”

She was steady—steely even—as she got him back into the truck somehow.

“Tell me about minotaurs,” he said, still panting. “What happens? Do we go psycho?”

“Minotaurs have violent rages,” she said without looking at him. Something in the ruined phone booth had cut through his T-shirt and tore his shoulder open.
Kneeling beside him in the front seat, using only the overhead car light to see, Layla inspected the wound. “Hold still, Ray.”

“We have violent rages and what?” he asked. “Kill people?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted, probing the wound. “Mostly, minotaurs don’t live as long as the one Theseus killed. Using their powers, they burn out quickly and die. That’s why Seth is so impatient to have you in his clutches. He wants to control you before you’re worthless to him.”

Great
. The expression on Ray’s face must have told her that he’d heard all he needed to know, and that he didn’t want to discuss it further because when she leaned back to look at him, all she said was, “Your cut isn’t too deep. You may not need stitches.”

“There’s no time for stitches.”

“At least let me bandage it.”

“I just need to drive,” Ray snapped, but he was in no condition to take the wheel. His vision was swimming and his hands were shaky. It’d be just his luck to be picked up by the cops for weaving on the road. “We need to get to Missy.”

“I’ll get us there,” Layla promised. “You just have to trust me.”

And in spite of all reason, he did.

Scorpion Group’s office was tucked back on D Street, just past L’Enfant Plaza, and the wedge-shaped gray and glass building was exactly as Layla had described it to him. Now, in the truck beside him, Layla was staring at the building with an expression of unease, her shoulders tense.

“So this is where you used to work?” Ray asked. “Will they recognize you?”

“I worked all over the world,” Layla said, her voice a monotone. “Mostly at the compound in Arlington, but I spent some time here.”

Seth may have wiped her memories to punish her, but Ray wondered if it had been a blessing in disguise. She’d run away from this life to make a new one in Las Vegas. She hadn’t wanted to face these memories and maybe she wouldn’t have ever had to if Ray hadn’t tracked her down. “Layla, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to relive your past….”

“I do have to, Ray. Seth took my memories, but now I think I want them back. All of them. Good and bad…”

Ray respected her determination, but was rethinking the wisdom of having her with him. “I still think it’s too dangerous.”

“You’re the only one in danger here,” Layla said, tying her hair back. “Every guard in that building could shoot me full of holes and I’d heal, but if you go in there, guns blazing—”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on blasting my way in. I was going to use my powers. I just need you to tell me about the security in this building. I need to know how many minds I need to control at once. I’ve never had to do it to more than one person at a time.”

“Don’t be stupid, Ray,” she said. “Every time you use your powers, it hurts you. I can do this.”

“How? If Seth is looking for you, don’t you think everyone on his payroll knows your face?”

“I’m going to riddle them,” she said.

“You mean like that guy in the Vegas stairwell? The
one you left a gibbering idiot after you hit him with the fire extinguisher?”

Layla winced. “He was trying to hurt me. I acted on instinct. I posed too powerful a riddle.”

“Is that what happened to Dr. Jaffe too?” He tried to ask it gently, but maybe there was no way of asking it that wouldn’t hurt her.

“I didn’t kill Nate Jaffe,” she said firmly, getting out of the truck. “Seth did that because he’s a jealous maniac. He wanted to spook me and to make me feel guilty, but I’m not groping around in the dark anymore. I know how to ask questions more like…”

“More like what you did to Missy when you made her cry,” Ray finished for her. “More like what you did to me in Syria.”

She nodded without meeting his eye. He saw her swallow, her fingers folding in her lap. “You have your monstrous powers, Ray, and I have mine.”

When he thought she was a mortal woman, he’d been haunted by her. Obsessed with her. Now that he knew she too was afflicted with strange abilities, it only deepened the connection. He’d thought they were so different. His hot temper clashed with her cool reason. His brawn versus her brains. But the monster in her was someone else’s creation, and he understood her struggle on the deepest level. She didn’t want to riddle anyone, but she was going to do it for his sake. For him.

“Well, if we’re gonna do this thing, then we’re gonna do it together,” Ray said.

At the front desk, Layla flashed her outdated badge for the security cameras, not for the guards. One of
them seemed to recognize her and started to pick up his radio, but Layla wasn’t about to let that happen.
“A maze without walls, turns or hidden doors. No map can chart it, no ship can sail it and only reflection can banish it.”

Confusion
. That would keep their minds working for a while. The guard with the radio sat back down in his chair as if lost in concentration. The other guard blinked, his eyelids drooping.

With that, she and Ray walked right into the building. She didn’t like Ray seeing her use her sphinx powers, but there was something exhilarating about what they were doing together as a team, and a look passed between them that made her melt. She’d never felt as if she had a partner in anything before. Now Ray knew her secrets, and he was still at her side.

Layla navigated the hallways quickly, threading her way to the storage room. If Seth was holding Missy prisoner in this building, he’d be keeping her there. When they reached the clerk on duty, the woman’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Dr. Bahset?”

Now it was Ray’s turn. He took one look at the woman, latched onto her mind, and said, “Push in the pass code.”