Waterborne (23 page)

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Authors: Katherine Irons

BOOK: Waterborne
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The edge of her sword met his slashing knife, and to her surprise, his blade shattered. He leaped back out of range of her return swing. She recovered and took a defensive stance as what had just happened played over in her mind.
What
had
just happened? Had her senses betrayed her? Her mind scrambled to solve the unsolvable ... until he spoke again.
“Ree? Is it you?”
“Nick?” She sucked in a gulp of air. Her mind reeled. “Nick?”
He laughed, and goose bumps rose on the back of her neck. She’d heard Nick laugh like that before, usually just after he’d squeezed off a killing shot. She could barely make him out in the black night, but the height was right, and he appeared to be wearing a suit and tie.
Always the best for Nick, a designer suit, black or charcoal gray, a black dress shirt—French, and black, handsewn Italian shoes. It was his uniform, even when he was engaged in wet work. He was bareheaded in the rain, his brown hair stylishly cut short. That was pure Nick, as well.
“Who did you think it was?” he quipped. “The Christmas elf?”
“But ...” She couldn’t find the words. Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. “You died in that car—”
“You were supposed to
believe
I died in that car bomb, or at least everyone else was. I’d hoped you would figure it out over time.”
Pain lanced through her chest. “It can’t be.”
“I assumed that you were dead. You’re overdue, you know. Your trainers have put a price on your head.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong. I was badly injured. I couldn’t report in.”
He made a sound of disbelief. “That’s not the way it goes, Ree. You don’t break contact with your handler. They think you’ve jumped the fence.”
“How do you know that?”
“I have connections. I may not be part of the system anymore, but it pays to know what’s happening.” He stared at her for a long minute. “I thought we’d meet up some day ... or night, if you were still alive. I just didn’t expect it would be here.”
She sucked in another breath, and the air scalded her lungs. Oddly, she found herself longing for the sea where it was easier to tell friend from enemy. Nick was alive. Nick had just come within a hair’s breadth of killing her. “Why?” she managed. “Why did you do it?”
“I wanted out. I was tired of doing all the work and getting none of the rewards.” He shrugged. “You know the organization. There’s only one way out, feet first.”
“I thought you were dead,” she repeated dumbly. “You let me believe you died in my place.”
“Ease up, honey. It’s all a game. You didn’t take it serious, what we had between us. Did you?”
She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. “All these years ...” And then pieces of the puzzle started to come together. She didn’t like the picture they were forming, but she was powerless to stop it. “We were closing in on Varenkov that night.”
“
You
were closing in on Varenkov. I knew where he was. I’d just come from a very profitable meeting with him.”
“But the body. They found ... pieces of ...” She swallowed. “Who died in that car?”
“If it’s any consolation, the man was already dead before the Russians put him into the car. A homeless guy who happened to fit my suit.”
She didn’t buy it. Not now. Not anymore. The coincidence was too easy. A homeless guy happened to drop dead just when Varenkov needed someone to fill in for Nick. They’d killed him. Maybe Nick had killed him. She’d never know the truth.
Ree felt sick. She was glad she hadn’t eaten since those few bites when she’d first arrived at the hut with Alex. If she’d had anything in her stomach, she would have lost it. “I loved you,” she said. “I thought you loved me.”
He laughed again, a hard, brittle sound. She’d heard that tone before, but Nick had never used it with her. “You thought wrong, baby. I graduated from the same school you did. And if you’d learned your lessons, you’d know that love is for losers. Love will get you nothing but trouble.”
“I guess I didn’t learn that part.”
“You should have.”
“I suppose you’re right. I should have. So, you’re working for Varenkov.”
“Finally, she gets it.”
“How could you work for him of all people? You know what he is.”
“Listen to yourself. Do you think Varenkov is any worse than the bastards who trained us? The high and mighty organization who sits back and decides who deserves to live and who should die?”
“They keep the world safe from scum like Varenkov.”
“They are scum like Varenkov,” he said.
“They rid the human race of mass murderers, child molesters, and war criminals when no one else can touch them. Have you forgotten that?”
“Most of our targets deserved what they got. I’ll give you that much. But did you ever think what price we paid to be part of their little experiment?”
She took another step back, trying to sort this all out in her head, struggling to know what was real and what was illusion. She felt disconnected, weak, and it seemed as if every breath was harder to take in. Her head was hurting, but not as it did when she was about to have far-sight and not the same as when she made fire. This was different and it frightened her. She was never sick. Her legs seemed to fold under her, as if the earth was pulling her down, and she fought to remain on her feet.
“You were a commodity, Ree,” Nick was saying. His voice was distorted, sounding as though it was coming from far off instead of only a few feet away. “I was a commodity. The gifts we were born with made us valuable to the institute. And they’d do anything to acquire us. Anything.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know. You’ve always known. You just don’t have the guts to admit it. Who do you think burned your mother and father into charcoal?”
She stared at him, unable to reply, unable to believe what Nick was saying. Her mother and her father? The organization had ordered their murders?
“You’re dumber than I thought,” Nick said. “Maybe too dumb to live.”
She saw a flash of light and heard the muffled thud of a silencer. The bullet smashed into her chest, and she tumbled backward into a dark and smothering nothingness.
CHAPTER 23
 
“H
ow is my brother?” Orion asked Lady Athena at the doorway to the inner sanctum. Orion held minor priestly orders; all members of the royal house did. But his ranking wasn’t high enough to pass through into the central healing chamber here in the great temple of Atlantis. His own wounds were healing quickly, but so far the news of Poseidon had not been heartening. An exception had been made for the queen, and she remained by his side, but that left Orion without trustworthy information on the king’s true condition. Orion felt that his only honest reports had come from his young niece Danu.
“Daddy is sick,” she’d told him. “Very sick. Grandmother says he has to stay asleep until he’s stronger. She put a powerful spell on him to help him get better.” Her small mouth had quivered and tears spilled from her beautiful eyes. “But he might not get better. He might die. I don’t want him to die.”
“Neither do I, darling,” Orion said. “None of us do.”
“Why did the bad men want to hurt him?”
Orion shook his head. “Because he was king. Because Caddoc wants to be king.”
“He won’t be,” Danu flung back. “He won’t! He’s far far away where it’s dark all the time. And he’s never coming back to Atlantis, so he can’t be king.”
Orion had assumed the reins of command, but he refused to conduct business from his brother’s throne, and he would accept no greater title, not even regent for the infant Prince Perseus. “He has a living mother and a father,” Orion had insisted. “I’ll not usurp their power.”
“As you will, Prince Orion,” Lord Zale, the vizier, answered, following Orion from the Hall of Justice and hurrying to keep up as Orion moved down the gilded corridor of mirrors. “But if the worst happens, you must take the crown. Prince Perseus is too young, and infant kings have a high mortality in Atlantis.”
“Is that a threat?” Orion whirled on the older man and glared at him.
“Don’t insult me,” Lord Zale answered. “You know that I’m loyal to your house and the monarchy. But I’m a student of history, and I could relate tales of the suspicious deaths of infant kings in the past. I only speak of such evil so that you will realize how serious this matter is. Perseus can’t be Poseidon for many years, if ever. You are a seasoned warrior. The people know and trust you.”
“But someone still tried to kill me.”
“And paid with their lives for the attempt.”
“And how many rebels haven’t we caught?” Orion asked. “When do I stop looking over my shoulder whenever I enter a dark hallway?”
Lord Zale shook his head sadly. “Perhaps never, but that is the price of being born to the royal house.”
“Unless I rid us of Caddoc’s opposition forever.” Orion left unspoken what they both knew. If his half brother should die, there would be no challenge to the throne and Poseidon, Alex, Lucas, Perseus, and Morwena would be safe.
I could give that order,
Orion thought.
I could send assassins to murder Caddoc and put an end to his scheming forever. . . if I wanted to pass a death sentence on my own father’s son.
For a moment, Orion considered the unthinkable. Would Alex give such an order if he were king? Orion was certain he knew the answer. Of the three brothers, Alex was most like their father, and maybe more of a king than either he or Morgan would ever be.
Orion could almost hear Alex’s voice. “Consider the lesser of the evils,” his twin would say, his eyes narrowing and darkening to a dangerous shade of green. “If someone has to die to prevent more rebellions, why not Prince Caddoc? Better our father executed him and his mother when they conspired to seize the throne the first time. He showed them mercy and now two of his other sons are dead because of it.”
But Alex wasn’t here, the weight of responsibility rested on his shoulders, and Lord Zale was clearly waiting for him to say something. “Morgan never wanted to become Poseidon.”
“Yet he has been an able king, wise beyond his years, wiser even in some matters than your late father, if I may be so bold as to say so. Not all accept the crown by choice.”
“My brother is still king. He’s alive, and he’s going to remain alive!”
“May the Supreme Being will it so.” The vizier sighed. “I hope and pray you are right, Prince Orion. But if it is not to be, you must be prepared to act decisively, before the kingdom is thrown into chaos and before Prince Caddoc returns to challenge you for the throne.”
 
Ree gasped and fought her way up out of darkness. She couldn’t breathe. Her ribs felt as if they were crushed. Each attempt to draw in air was agony. She forced her eyes open and had the vague impression that Nick was standing over her, a pistol in his hand.
He’d shot her. Nick, her Nick had shot her. She pressed her hand against her breast expecting to feel the gush of her life’s blood, but instead of a gaping wound, her seeking fingers brushed loose a metal slug that had been partially trapped in the creases of her cuirass.
“Wearing body armor?” Nick said. “Clever girl. But not clever enough.” He stepped closer, lowering the muzzle to within inches of her forehead. “No armor here.”
She concentrated on the pistol, threw every ounce of willpower into sending a lightning bolt of flame up the barrel. Steel wouldn’t burn, but flesh would. And steel could melt.
A vision flashed across her mind. She saw Nick squeeze the trigger, saw the results of that deadly missile penetrating her temple, saw what remained of her skull once the bullet penetrated flesh and bone and brain matter.
And released her single arrow of fire ...
For an instant, time seemed to stop, and then she heard Nick scream as the pistol glowed red with heat. She rolled away, trying desperately to avoid the falling weapon, but she needn’t have worried. The fiery walnut pistol grip adhered to the skin of Nick’s hand. He screamed again, flinging the misshapen blob of metal and charred wood away, ripping skin and flesh from his hand, exposing quivering tendons.
Headlights turned the corner, and Nick bolted into the shadows, clutching his injured hand. Ree crawled on hands and knees into the darkness in the opposite direction Nick had taken. He would need immediate medical attention, and she doubted he would come back to try and finish her off, but she couldn’t be sure.
The vehicle, an aging SUV full of passengers, drove by and turned into a private driveway a block away. Ree gritted her teeth and got to her feet. She could feel the grate of bone on bone and knew that at least one of her ribs was broken. Still, she felt as though she’d gotten off lucky.
How could she have been so wrong about Nick? Had he been lying to her when they’d been an item, or was he lying now? She couldn’t accept that he’d never cared for her. It would be more in his character to make his choice and try and defend it later. Making her think that he’d never loved her might be easier than admitting he’d betrayed her. Either option was a lose-lose, as far as she was concerned. All these years she’d mourned him, and he wasn’t worth one tenth of the tears she’d shed for him.
He’d tried to kill her, not once, but twice. Any doubts she had about how he felt about her now were moot. Whatever he’d once felt, that was gone. The man she’d thought she loved was dead. If he’d ever existed, she’d never know.
He’d called her a fool. Maybe she was, but she wasn’t stupid enough to give him an opportunity to kill her a third time. Nick had chosen his side, and it wasn’t the one she was standing on.
Swimming on,
she thought with black Irish humor. How had she been so blind? The pain in her chest was nothing compared to the ache in her heart, not for Nick, but for all she could have had and had thrown away.
Alex ... Whatever he was, Atlantean, visitor from space, or a figment of her imagination, he was a better man than Nick had ever or would ever be.
But she wasn’t sorry that she’d followed Nick and been confronted by him. He’d given her information that she’d searched for all her life. Click, click, click. The puzzle pieces that had eluded her since she was a small, frightened child had all dropped into place. And the truth was, she’d always suspected that the organization had been to blame for her parents’ deaths, suspected and pushed it away, burying it in the far corners of her mind because it was too terrible to accept.
She hadn’t fit in anywhere but the organization. She had no family, no friends, no clan or community who could accept her for what and who she was. And now, her only refuge had turned hollow. She couldn’t go back if she wanted to, and she didn’t want to. The hatred she carried inside her for her parents’ murderers, all her plans for revenge dissolved into despair and confusion. Some anonymous and radical political group hadn’t killed her mother and father. She had to face the fact that if she hadn’t been born, they’d probably still be alive.
It was too much to take in. Her head pounded and her stomach knotted. The weak feeling, the sensation that she was walking through knee-deep mud returned, and she suspected that her trouble breathing wasn’t simply the result of a broken rib or two. Instinct told her that Anuata was right. She was suffering from some strange sickness that had her longing for the feel of salt water on her skin and the cool and shadowy depths of the ocean.
But old habits die hard. She’d followed Nick here to see what he was up to. If he was working for Varenkov, everything he did was at the Russian’s bidding. And she’d been trained to be thorough. The way to a target was to know everything about him. Varenkov had sent Nick here for a reason. She was in no physical condition to go after Nick and try to take him out, but she could attempt to learn why he’d gone to that particular residence.
Drugs, prostitution, weapons dealing, pornography, Varenkov had his dirty hands in all of the mortal sins. It would be logical to investigate the house rather than to report back to Alex with nothing other than the name of Varenkov’s associate. The problem was that high wall around the house. Normally, walls and fences were easy. She’d learned to disable state-of-the-art security systems and pick locks when she was twelve. She hadn’t tried scaling a ten-foot-high cement wall with a broken rib and no equipment. Still, she reasoned, it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.
She choked back a bitter laugh. That was incorrect; it would hurt. It would hurt like hell, but the need to see inside tugged at her. And once she’d fixed on an idea, it was hard to shake. Intuition had rarely steered her wrong, and physical pain would be a small price to pay if she learned something worthwhile by being persistent.
Ree had gone half a block when she heard footsteps on the wet ground behind her. Her hearing wasn’t as acute on land as it was in the water, but she was no slouch. She moved into the foliage and waited. Nothing. No sound but the wind through the palms and the patter of falling rain. Had she been unnerved by Nick’s ambush and imagined that she’d heard someone coming? She doubted that Nick was anywhere in the vicinity now. Unless he wanted to apply for permanent disability, he’d be at the nearest hospital having his burned hand tended to by a specialist. So who else—
She heard a twig snap to her left. As she watched, a tall, muscular figure flowed out of the shadows, a silhouette with a long scalp-lock dangling down her back. “Anuata?” she called softly.
The big warrior-woman materialized out of the wet night. “Why are you here?” she asked. “This is not a place for us. It stinks of humans.”
“Alex sent me to follow a man from Varenkov’s boat.”
“I know that, but Alex was worried about you. He sent me to back you up.”
“How did you know where to look?”
“A seagull told me.”
“A seagull?”
Anuata chuckled. “You fell for that one easily enough. Seagulls don’t talk. Or if they do, I don’t speak their language.” She stifled another laugh. “Have you seen many seagulls flying around tonight?”
“Then how—”
“The Zodiac. It’s moored at the dock. Alex told me you followed it.” Anuata moved closer. “Why are you holding your side? Have you an injury?”
“The man I was trailing shot me. My armor protected me, but the force of the blow may have broken a rib.”
“Shot you with what? A spear-gun?”
“A pistol.”
Anuata nodded. “I have heard of the humans’ pistols that shoot bits of metal. They are like the rifles that the dolphin killers use.”
“That’s right. My injury isn’t severe, but I need to get into that house, and there’s a high wall around it. I’m not certain if I can climb it.” Somehow, the big Amazon with her childish sense of humor had grown on her, and she found herself glad of Anuata’s company. “Do you think you can help me over the wall?”
“Is the man you follow inside?”
“No.” Ree shook her head. “He came out of the house. That’s when he shot me, but I hurt him worse. He’s gone, probably seeking medical care.”
“You want to see inside the wall?”
“Yes. I think it’s important. Whoever lives there probably works for the Russian as well. I need to know what they’re doing. I’m sure they’re involved in some criminal activity, but I don’t want to go back to Alex and say what I think. I have to be able to tell him what is.”

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