The Darkest Gate (9 page)

Her hands tensed on the bowl as she straightened. Elise was soaked in mud, and the slight breeze gave her chills. The odds weren’t good. Not good at all. Mr. Black may have been old, but he would be fast. Elise didn’t like her chances against him. It was an unpleasantly vulnerable position to be caught in.

“You made it,” Mr. Black said in a warm voice, like a pleasant older uncle. He wore a fine white suit and leaned on a jeweled cane. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised, but you have impressed me mightily, young lady.”

James was pale. There was sweat on his brow. “Elise—” he began.

A nudge from the pistol cut him off.

“I’ll take that now,” Mr. Black said, stretching his hand out.

She didn’t move. “The money.”

“Surely you don’t think I wouldn’t make good on a deal?” He caught her glance toward James and feigned further shock, fluttering his hand at his breast. “Oh, my dear, I realize this must not look good. We spotted Mr. Faulkner trying to follow you underground. We're only concerned he might have been trying to stop you. Don’t you see? It was for your safety.”

She considered the accusation. As persistent as James had been in following her around, he had never shown an inclination to hurt her. He was taking short, shallow breaths. Not injured. Just afraid. He didn’t like having a gun aimed at him. Well, that was his fault for following her where he wasn’t wanted.

“The money,” Elise said again.

Mr. Black’s smile widened with delight. “You don’t find having your witch friend at gunpoint motivational? You surprise me again!”

“He’s not my friend.”

“Well, well. Then I suppose it doesn’t matter if we shoot him. What do you think?”

“The money for the bowl.”

“Cold, my dear. Very cold. I appreciate that.”

Mr. Black gestured. Alain opened his jacket with his free hand, removed a piece of paper, and offered it to Elise. She hugged the bowl to her stomach as she stepped up to take it from him. James’s features were drawn and grim.

The paper was another set of coordinates.

“I’ve hidden your money,” Mr. Black said. “Couldn’t risk having you take it from us without holding up your end of the deal, hmm? Now it appears that wouldn’t have been necessary.”

Elise thought back to the map. The coordinates weren’t far.

“Goodbye,” she said, more to James than the other men.

Then she tucked the bowl under her arm and started toward the lights of the freeway. When Mr. Black called after her, there was no good humor in his voice. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I don’t see my money.”

Alain moved in the corner of her eye. He was turning the gun on her.

In a flash, she grabbed the pistol, slammed her hand into the joint of Alain’s elbow, and kicked him to the ground. The bowl didn’t even slip.

Whirling, she aimed the gun at Mr. Black’s face.

Everyone froze.

He couldn’t seem to work up a grin again. It flickered on his lips and was replaced by wary evaluation. Would she shoot him? “You want me to have the bowl as much as I do,” he said in a low whisper that only she would be able to hear. “If you want me to kill Him.”

“Yes. I also want my money.”

He raised his voice. “Alain. Go get it.”

The aspis got to his feet, glaring fire at Elise, but he obeyed without argument. He vanished down the hill.

James stood. His knees were wet and he was breathing hard. “You don’t want to do that,” he said, giving the bowl a look very much like the one he had given Alain’s gun. He didn’t seem much less nervous without a bullet aimed for his head. “You can still put it back.”

Mr. Black wasn’t sweating. “A deal’s a deal, Mr. Faulkner. You know that better than anyone else.”

“What do you know?” James asked, turning pale.

“I’ve done my research.”

Before they could say anything else, Elise released the clip and offered the unloaded gun to Mr. Black. “When you do it, I want to be there,” she said.

“Surprises again and again.” He tucked the gun in his jacket with a scowl. It twisted his face into hard, frightening lines. “I don’t think I like surprises.”

Elise pocketed the clip. “I don’t like being treated like I’m stupid.”

Alain reappeared shortly holding a canvas bag that was almost as muddy as she was. At Elise’s gesture, he handed it to James, who looked inside. “It seems to be more than enough,” he said hesitantly, thumbing through a stack of money bound by a rubber band. “But Elise, you shouldn’t—”

She gave Alain the bowl.

And just like that, Mr. Black was all smiles again. “Wonderful. We’ll be in contact.”

They walked away. James shook, as though fighting the urge to run after them. “Do you have any idea what they can do with that thing? Don’t you realize what could happen?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

He waited to speak again until both of the other men had gotten into their car, which was parked on the far end of the hill. The headlights receded into the distance. “I thought you were going to let him kill me.”

She turned on him. “What’s wrong with you? Why won’t you leave me alone?”

“Excuse me?”

“You follow me everywhere. Always. Ever since Russia. There’s no reason for it. Go home!” She flung out an arm, gesturing vaguely toward the horizon. “You’re not the one who has to run and hide!”

“Your enemies are mine, Elise, and we’re safer together than we are apart. You must realize this by now.”

“Following me to get an ethereal artifact? That’s safe?”

“Perhaps it wasn’t the best-conceived plan,” he muttered. “You can hardly blame me. I was worried about you.”

“Worried. About me.”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. The breeze lifted, blowing the hair back from his face. James’s expression was open and honest, as earnest as it had ever been, and she couldn’t think of a response.

She turned to head back to the motel.

As always, he followed.

JUNE 1999

D
r. Kingsley called
several days later to say that he had the results of Elise’s tests.

They met in his private office, which was decorated with hanging herbs and crystals. He shut the door and locked it behind them. “I don’t want anyone to intrude. I haven’t discussed your karyotype test with anyone else in the practice,” the doctor explained as they sat. “I discovered something… unusual.”

“Is something wrong?” James asked.

“No, no. Nothing is technically ‘wrong.’ I had my theories about what could cause a female kopis, but… well, the tests were informative.”

“How so?”

“Some things are not surprising. First of all, you have a myostatin deficiency, which means you build muscle easily. That’s an expected trait among kopides. What’s more surprising is that you’re completely androgen insensitive. Do you know what that means?” he asked. Elise shook her head. “Genetically, you have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, like a man, but all the physical characteristics of a woman.”

Elise’s eyes widened. “I’m a man?”

“No. You’re a woman with an intersex condition.”

“I don’t understand.”

Neither did James. “Is that why she’s never…?”

“You’ll never menstruate because you don’t have a uterus or ovaries, Miss Kavanagh. That means children aren’t in your future, either. This explains so much about kopides.” Dr. Kingsley rubbed his hands together, face bright with excitement. “We might want to consider surgically removing—”

Sudden motion cut him off. Elise shoved her chair back and stood, face red.

Her mouth opened, like she wanted to say something, but nothing came out. She gave James a helpless look before leaving the room without a word.

Dr. Kingsley blinked rapidly, as though trying to decide what might have upset his new favorite patient. “You couldn’t have been more sensitive about that?” James asked.

“What do you mean?”

He had just told a teenage girl that she was not, strictly speaking, a teenage girl, and that she would never have children. And he didn’t understand why that might be distressing.

James stood. “Thank you for your assistance. Forward the bill to my coven. I don’t think we’ll need further help.”

“But… there are other tests I want to run.” The doctor moved in front of the door, preventing him from leaving. “Do you realize what this means? The impact this could have on our scientific understanding of supernatural phenomena? If we could just do exploratory surgery…”

Anger swelled in him. He grabbed the doctor’s shirt in a fist and shoved their faces close together. James wasn’t imposing, but he had a good six inches on the other man, and the temper to back it up. “We are done with your services.”

James dropped him. Dr. Kingsley stumbled back, pale and shaking.

He followed Elise out of the office.

She wasn’t waiting for him outside, so he decided not to search for her. Instead, he returned to their motel. Elise had used some of Mr. Black’s money to buy food the night before, and there was actual fresh fruit on the table. He passed the time savoring an apple—the first produce he’d eaten in weeks that hadn’t been half-rotten and dug from the trash.

Elise returned a few hours later. James didn’t bother asking where she had been.

“Thank you. You aren’t—I don’t—” She bowed her head and cleared her throat. “I don’t have anyone else. You didn’t have to follow me to the mounds. And you didn’t need to go to the doctor with me. So… thank you.”

He felt a sudden, foreign burst of affection for her. “You’re welcome. I’ll always be here, you know. We’re in this together now.”

She leaned her head on his chest. He almost pushed her away until he realized she was hugging him rather than attacking him. James’s hands hovered awkwardly over her shoulders. When several moments passed without Elise moving, he hugged her back.

James wondered what she thought of being unable to have children. It didn’t seem right to ask.

A moment later, she stepped back. Her face was expressionless again. “Well,” Elise said. “Guess it’s time to go kill Mr. Black.”

P
ART
F
OUR

The New Job

VII

JULY 2009

F
ist connected with
bag. Elise grunted. The chain rattled.

Her focus was narrowed on a worn square inch in the center of the punching bag. She struck again and again, feeling the shock all the way up to her shoulders as she rolled her entire body into each hit. The bag swung, and she darted to the side to keep from getting hit. Her chest rose and fell with heaving breaths. Her throat was still raw from breathing in smoke.

Elise had hung her old punching bag from a hook in the back room of Motion and Dance, where the coven usually held esbats. In a past life, it had been a garage, but it was also her personal gym in the year she lived with James. She had hoped bringing it out for a beating would make her feel better. Now the bandages wrapped around her palms were soaked with sweat, her hair stuck to her neck, and her jogging bra was drenched. But it wasn’t enough.

She leaned back and kicked. Even bare-footed, it was hard enough to make the chain groan and dust explode off the bag.

The door creaked. She spun, fists raised.

Anthony froze in the doorway.

“James said you were down here.” He eased into the room and shut the door.

The sight of her boyfriend filled her with exhaustion. She had already spent hours being “interviewed” by the police, and hours more talking with James. She had no more energy for words.

She twisted and lashed out with a foot, hitting the bag again. When it swung back, she punched it once, twice, three times, loosing all her frustrated energy.

Anthony took position at the other side of the bag and held it for her. It was easier hitting it that way, but not as satisfying. She pounded it one more time before stopping. “What do you want?” she snapped. “You should be with Betty in the hospital.”

“How can you ask me that? Our apartment burned, Elise. Almost everything is gone. I need answers.”

She kicked the bag hard enough to make him take a step back. “I don’t have anything for you.”

“But you know who did it.”

Elise nodded, rolling her shoulders out and digging her fingers into the muscle to try to release tension. She had healed from the bite wound delivered by James when he was possessed by Death’s Hand, but it stiffened if she moved her arm too much. Anthony stepped forward like he was going to massage her. She stayed out of reach.

He dropped his hands. “Come on. I’ve been hunting with you. We killed giant spiders together. If you’re trying to protect me—”

“I’m not.”

“Then who is it? Let’s get him. Let’s
kill
him. He’s jacked up our lives and we owe somebody serious pain!”

The thought of Anthony going after Mr. Black was laughable. Alain would shoot him on sight. “Go help James carry everything upstairs,” Elise said, even though there was little to move. Not much had survived the fire.

“Let me help you. I’m almost as strong as you are. I have a shotgun. We can do this together.”

“No. Drop it.”

But he didn’t relent. “Are you going after him today? Are you going to—?”

“Anthony,” she interrupted. “Shut the hell up.”

His mouth clapped shut. “You would take James along. Wouldn’t you?”

She went back to abusing the punching bag.

Elise shut him out, shut the room out, shut out all her unpleasant thoughts of empty bank accounts and terminated contracts and burned buildings. All she felt was fury. Retribution. The impact of knuckles against leather.

After a minute of silent watching, Anthony left.

Her cell phone rang. It vibrated on the table by the mirrors hard enough to travel toward the edge. She patted the sweat from her chest with a towel as she picked it up. The phone didn’t display a number, but she wasn’t surprised when David Nicholas was on the other end.

“Your first job’s tonight,” he said.

She waited to catch her breath before responding. “Don’t tell me I have to work with you.”