God's Eye (50 page)

But he lingered, the taste of her on his human lips too sweet and too seductive to step back. He brushed her hair off her face and whispered a few words before kissing her one last time. He forced himself to turn away.

Walking a straight line in the opposite direction from where she lay, Allistair pushed himself straight through the wall in frustration at his feelings and at what he had to do. He went right through to the other side, only to find Zachary had been watching.

He stared his opponent in the eyes for just a moment.

Endgame.

•  •  •

Katharine awoke to several things at once.

Her phone was ringing, though it was clearly still the middle of the night.

She was on her bed, though she didn’t remember getting there. She was certain she’d fallen asleep on the couch.

And heavy footsteps were walking away from her bed. The icy chill of fear flooded her as she smelled the edge that clung to the air. Somewhere, just beyond her five senses, was the odor of rot and the soft lick of something evil. Not something that hated her or was after her. No, it was far worse. It was a feeling that this thing wanted … something. She was in its way. And she was completely unimportant other than that.

It would toss her aside, step on her, shred her as she screamed. And it would think no more of it in its attempt to reach what it wanted.

Katharine’s instincts had her sitting very still, breathing shallowly and trying to calm her racing heart like the rabbit that prays the hunter won’t see it.

But, like the rabbit, she gained nothing with her tactic.

She couldn’t see the creature, didn’t even see its outline or form, but she knew exactly where it was. There was a change in the air quality where it stood, even though there was nothing she could point to. She heard the footsteps slow and come to a stop near her doorway, but it was something else–some other odd sense that she’d never exercised before–that told her it had turned and was looking right at her.

Her breath caught in her throat and everything in her jerked to a standstill.

Though she couldn’t see it, smell it, hit it, anything, she knew it could do all those things to her. And worse. So she waited.

It continued to stare at her, for long enough that she began the long, gradual inhalation through her nose that would keep her from passing out. Once she had ever-so-slowly filled her lungs, she began to let the air out just as slowly. And still it stared. Katharine didn’t move, but continued her nearly invisible breathing and began to wonder what it was thinking. What it had planned, for surely it was planning something. She was just a rabbit. No, she was less than a rabbit. The rabbit was food to the wolf, and food was important. She wasn’t even that.

So she sat still and tried to give it no ideas.

Though she had no concept of the time it stood there, eventually it turned and walked away, the footsteps fading near her front door.

Even then, she waited to hear the door open and close, then remembered that the door wasn’t necessary; this creature wasn’t constrained by her human boundaries. She would have to trust her instincts that it was gone. Even so, she waited a full minute before she let out her breath and sagged on the bed, staring at her carpet, hoping not to see anything else. But when she did look up she saw that Zachary was striding through her living room, visible through the open bedroom door.

He was coming back to her on the same path the demon had just walked and, though she only just now noticed it, the phone was still ringing. Or ringing again.

As she gathered her thoughts and straightened out her breathing, she held a finger up to him and reached out to grab the phone. “Hello?” A call this late couldn’t mean anything good.

“Katharine!” Margot’s voice came through clearly. “I found it! I’m on my way over.”

“Yeah, come on over, I’m up now. What did you find?” Katharine’s eyes remained on Zachary, though he seemed unconcerned that she was inviting her friend over with him standing there in front of her. She desperately wanted Margot to see him, to see and validate at least some of what was going on. Zachary’s nonchalance began to worry her, but Margot’s voice through the line pulled her back into reality.

“The thing about the levels. After Liam went home I wasn’t tired, so I started reading. I have it.”

She sounded excited about it, and Katharine felt her lips lifting up at the sides. Until she looked up.

Now Zachary broke into the conversation. “Is she coming over? Tell her no. It’s not safe.”

He was grabbing at her hand, trying to tug her along while she was trying to explain what Margot overheard him saying.

“Katharine!” Margot sounded frustrated. “Is he there?” She didn’t specify which “he” and then ignored her own question and kept talking. “I need you to answer a few questions about what they look like. Maybe look at a few things in this book, then we’ll know which is which. It’s still a bit of a crapshoot, but … I think I know how to figure it out.”

“Really?” Katharine sat back down on the edge of her bed, yanking at the hold Zachary had on her. It should have bothered her more that he wasn’t letting go. But she’d been lulled by the fact that she didn’t have feelings for him anymore. By the idea that the protection spell was working. Though she was very afraid of her future, she was no longer afraid of him.

He pulled her back to her feet. “Get off the phone. He’s coming! You have to get out of here.”

This time she ignored the phone and looked right at him. “Who’s coming?”

She needed to know what Margot was going to say before she went anywhere with him. Had Margot really found it?

“Allistair.” Zachary didn’t shout it; he didn’t sound afraid. And maybe the one word was more ominous because of it.

He took advantage of her momentary confusion and took the phone out of her hand. “It isn’t safe here now. Tell her not to come.”

Katharine still looked at him askance, but did as he instructed before he shut off the phone and tossed it onto the bed behind her. She heard only the first part of a word as Margot was cut off.

His urgency grew. “We have to go. We have to leave now.”

But she didn’t trust him–didn’t trust him to be what he said, didn’t trust him to keep her safe from the evil that was after her. She didn’t trust either of them, and didn’t trust herself to make any decisions at all right now.

She wanted Margot. Wanted to know what Margot knew. But Zachary had her on her feet and was pulling her headlong toward the living room when they ran into Allistair.

“Zachary, Katharine.” Allistair was cool and calm, his dark coloring in direct opposition to Zachary’s blonde hair and beautiful pale eyes. Katharine was thinking about Allistair and his earthy good looks when she felt a tug.

Still cuffing her wrist with his hand, Zachary turned to her and looked right into her eyes. “It’s time. You have to choose.” His breath heaved in and out as though he had run a great distance to get to this moment, as though this were very important to him.

But Katharine wondered. Was it really important? How bad would it be for him if he lost the game? As bad as it would be for her? As bad as it had been for Mary Wayne?

She looked at both men. “Why do I have to choose now?”

Allistair’s face didn’t belie any expression. “Zachary got called.”

“What?” Her head whipped around to look at him, just as Zachary’s did. But Zachary didn’t loosen his grip on her wrist and Katharine didn’t fight it. There were more important things to do now.

“He has been called to another assignment.” Allistair’s voice was as calm as if he were announcing that the day would be partly cloudy and warm. As if it were of no consequence whatsoever.

From her feet to her head, fury boiled up and over. “And so that’s it? You’re done with me? Game over?”

Allistair opened his mouth to respond. “You have everything you need.”

But Zachary spoke over him. “You have to decide now. Allistair is manipulating you.”

Katharine watched the conversation rocket back and forth between the two of them.

Allistair simply looked her in the eyes and shook his head no.

Again, Katharine wasn’t sure she could trust that.

Tugging her hand along as he gestured and spoke, Zachary stared Allistair down. “You were here earlier tonight. You carried her into her bedroom.”

He didn’t ask it, he stated it, and Allistair didn’t make any denials. Katharine waited.

“You said something to her. You have been trying to tell her something.” This time Zachary let go of her hand and stepped back as though to present her in a grand gesture, leaving Katharine standing between the two men, facing Allistair and waiting. “Tell her now.”

But Allistair didn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

Attempting to gain some measure of control of the situation, Katharine stepped back. It was really all the same, wasn’t it? No matter what he said or what she did to make him say it. No matter how the two men prodded at each other, it would all come down to her.

As Zachary stepped in to fill her field of vision, she automatically turned to hear what he would say. “Come with me, Katharine. You deserve the Kingdom. You won’t have it right away. There’s still more for you to do here, but you’ll find your time here is filled with riches. Katharine.”

He held his hand out to her. His perfect hand. Pale and soft and unused. And he waited.

Allistair’s hands remained in his pockets. She knew what they were like, didn’t have to see them. Even in his short time here, he’d used those hands. He was starting to get calluses. Though the small cuts he got healed quickly, he was always shoving his hands into the pebbles on the beach, trailing them along fences and siding, getting them dirty, nicking them as he tried new things. He didn’t say anything to her now, and though he tried to look as though the decision was all hers, he looked worried. At least she thought he did.

Katharine looked back at Zachary, his hand still out to her, waiting for her to accept his invitation. His expression said he was offering her everything if only she would come. She then looked at Allistair, hands in pockets, a small frown forming between eyes the color of rich soil as he stared directly at her.

Someone was about to win.

And someone was about to lose. And there was every possibility that the loser would be her.

For an eternity she stood there, both men watching her and waiting. Her brain and her heart fought.

She felt things from Allistair, the pull of him that she knew was just because of what he was. And she fought against it. Fought to stay rational. Though she began just then to wonder if being rational was the right thing to do? What had it gotten her so far?

It was Zachary with his Kingdom that appealed the most. And maybe that was the problem. But how could she choose Allistair? He showed her so many things that scared her, too many bad things to count. How could she knowingly pick that?

She wanted to call Margot, ask for help. She needed to know what her friend had found out.

Maybe Margot was on her way here already. Maybe if Katharine just held out long enough, she could wait until Margot arrived. Then she could really make her choice, and make an informed one. She didn’t like the guess she was being forced into.

Zachary shook his head at her. “She won’t get here in time. You can’t call her.”

Allistair at least looked sympathetic. “It was always this way. You have always had to make the decision on your own.”

Katharine stood there and waited, not really knowing what to do, but never questioning that they had both responded to thoughts that she hadn’t put into words. It was more important to think that maybe they were wrong. They couldn’t stop Margot, could they? Katharine did nothing while both men watched her. She focused on the second hand of the clock on her living room wall, and went away in her head for a few moments.

The clock had been her mother’s and had belonged to some long-ago grandparents before that. It was old and out of keeping with her taste. She didn’t like the clock. She’d just been told that it was hers, and so it had been. She watched the second hand sweep and wondered how many other things she had and did that were just the things she had been told were hers. And she wondered how she was going to fix all those things. Then she realized that it didn’t matter. Unless Margot got here soon, she wasn’t going to get the chance to fix much of anything.

As the second hand passed the twelve again, Katharine watched for the minute hand to make its tick. Sometimes at night, she could hear the sound as the hand lurched from one minute to the next.

But it didn’t do that now.

She watched again as the second hand swept all the way to the bottom, then up to the left and past the top again. And still the minute hand didn’t move. Again. Again she watched it do this.

At last she turned to look at the two men.

Zachary’s eyebrows were up. There was nothing she could do.

At least Allistair looked a bit apologetic.

Katharine saw then that they had been right, Margot would never make it.

There was no time, and yet there was all the time in the world.

They were right–she had to choose. And she had to choose on her own. With only what she already knew. There would be no more information coming from the outside. She had only herself and the two of them.

Of all the things she hadn’t sorted out, there was one thing that bothered her more than the others. She had woken that one night, right after Allistair had left her bed, and she had called out to him. It was the demon that had said yes.

If it had truly answered to its name, she would have to choose Zachary. She needed to know what had happened. She had to at least ask.

“Allistair.” She pleaded, praying this would solve something, get her closer to what she needed to know. “When you answered to your name … do you remember? … Did you …”

She struggled several times to ask it, and he waited patiently while she didn’t get it right. Finally, she just retold the story and asked if it was him.

“Katharine.” His eyes were sad. “I can’t tell you that. I can’t tell you what I am or what Zachary is. You have to choose based on what you’ve already seen, on what you feel.” He shook his head. “If I answer that, you will belong to Zachary, because I will have broken the code.”