When Wicked Craves (31 page)

“Are you hearing this?” Elric asked. They were in a vehicle borrowed from Division 18, and he had the radio tuned to the local Alliance frequency. “Goddamn, it’s a fucking bloodbath, and Gunnolf was barely left alive.”

“I hear it,” Tariq said, forcing the words out between clenched teeth. The reports blaring out over the radio were almost hysterical, as if procedure and form had been lost to terror. And it took a lot to terrorize Alliance officers.

“The monster is here,” Vale said. “Fuck me. I do
not
want to face that thing.”

“We don’t have to,” Tariq said. “Our goal is the girl. Find the goal, kill the girl, destroy the monster.” He looked at his teammates. “We walk back into Alliance HQ as fucking heroes.” Shit, he just might end up with his uncle’s newly empty Alliance seat.

“The brother,” Vale said, pulling the small silver tracker from his bag. “We keep our focus on the brother, and he’ll lead us to the girl.”

“We know he came to Paris,” Tariq said. “And we know the girl was right there in the middle of the carnage.”

“Sooner or later he’s going to hone in on her,” Elric said.

Tariq smiled and pulled away from the curb, sliding neatly into the predawn traffic. “And we’ll be right there when he does.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Petra demanded, beating Nick to the punch. “You
made
me this way?”

“Do you remember what we sought all those years ago?” Ferrante asked, turning just long enough to look at Nick. “You and I and Giotto?”

Nick hesitated, uncertain if the question was relevant,
or if his old mentor was baiting him, laying the groundwork for revenge, long overdue. “I remember.”

“Of course you do,” Ferrante said. “Forgive me. The question was cruel. That was not my intention.”

Nick glanced sideways at Petra, who looked equally baffled. “All right,” he said. “Go on.”

“I achieved our goal. It took me another ten years of examining the world, traveling to the far reaches of the earth before designing detailed—and often dangerous—experiments. I spent countless hours recording observations, trying to understand the mechanical underpinnings of the universe, of time, of life itself. But finally—
finally
—I achieved that which I’d searched for all my life—immortality.”

“Since it has been more than seven hundred years since our last meeting, I had assumed as much,” Nick said, making Ferrante chuckle.

“True, my young Nicholas. But what is also true is that my success came at a heavy price.”

“What price?” Nick asked, fearing the answer.

It wasn’t Ferrante who responded, though. It was Petra.

“Me,” she said. “Me, and Vivian Chastain, and others like us.”

Once again, Marco met her gaze in the mirror, his smile sad. “Yes,” he whispered. “As I said, the price was steep. And, I assure you, unintentional.”

“I’m still not following,” Nick said, his mind flipping through everything he knew about alchemy, about chemistry and biology. “Tell me how. Exactly.”

“The details, no.” Nick started to protest, but Ferrante held up a hand and aimed a stern look into the
mirror. “I long ago swore never to repeat to another soul what I did, because I see now that my actions were a sin against God.”

“Did not God give men minds to explore? And was it not your exploration that led to your immortality?”

“You will not engage me, Nicholas, so do not even try. I will not share the details, but I will tell you the story. Listen, or don’t. It’s up to you.”

Nick glanced sideways at Petra, but she was leaning forward, eager to hear what he had to say. He understood why. Hell, he felt the same way. “Go on.”

Ferrante nodded. “The process was complicated, and one that used both mineral and biological elements. It required the extraction, alteration, and reintroduction of various vitreous fluids into a number of subjects.”

“Wait,” Petra said. “Just so I’m clear. This curse was made in a laboratory?”

“I’m afraid so, although ‘curse’ is perhaps the wrong word. It’s more of a by-product.”

“A by-product,” she repeated, her voice dry. “Nice.”

“As I said, your situation was entirely unintentional. I used assistants. Volunteers. And one was your ancestor. I am deeply sorry.”

“But—” She cut herself off, trying to make some sense of what he was saying. “But how can my family’s curse be the by-product of something you cooked up in a laboratory?”

“That would require me to go into details, and I—”

“And the blue moon thing,” she continued. “How can that be the result of a chemical experiment gone wrong?”

Nick reached out and touched her sleeve, then shook
his head ever so slightly when she looked his direction. He agreed with her—Ferrante was holding something back—but now wasn’t the time to push. Ferrante had come with a purpose of his own, and Nick wanted to let him get to it so that he could see the bigger picture of what was going on. “The bottom line is that you figured out a way,” Nick prompted.

“And that way created the by-product. The curse,” he said to Petra. “Three volunteers assisted me. Three were inflicted by the curse, and I swore to them—
swore—
that I would search for a way to lift it. That bracelet was my bond.”

“But what does that have to do with a connection?” Petra asked. “You said it was because you’re the reason behind the curse that there’s a connection between us. How?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It is one of the mysteries of alchemy. But I can summon that connection. Have always been able to summon it, all through these long years.”

Nick breathed slowly, reaching out with his own connection to Petra, and could feel within her both belief and wariness. Like him, she could sense that there was some truth in Ferrante’s story. And like him, she knew that there were large omissions. Not lies, perhaps, but certainly not the full story.

Ferrante had told them as much at the outset, though, stating outright that he wouldn’t tell them the precise method by which he achieved immortality. Was that what he was withholding? Or was there something else? Something more insidious?

Nick considered the question, and as he did, he felt
Petra’s thoughts move on as curiosity filled her. Curiosity, and fear.

She was, he realized, thinking of Serge.

“What about the monster?” she asked, as Nick released the blood connection. “Do you feel a connection to it, too?”

“What an interesting question. Why do you ask?”

“Because I do. I can feel its rage and its need to kill. And earlier, at the cemetery, when I told it to stop, it did.”

“You controlled Serge?” Marco asked, sounding both surprised and concerned.

“Yeah. I think so. I didn’t think that was even possible. I didn’t think they
had
control, much less that they could
be
controlled.”

“He’s changed over time,” Nicholas said. “The rage is still there, but it’s more intense and focused. Less frenetic. And from what Luke has reported, the monster seems to act with awareness, not the way you’ve seen it the first few hours out of the gate.”

She managed a grin. “I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse. But at any rate, we know he won’t hurt me. Kill me, and the monster’s done. So the question is, should I do something? Should we try to find Serge? Maybe I can stop him. Control him?”

Ferrante’s laugh was coarse. “Perhaps—
perhaps
—you have some level of control, young lady, but can you tell where the monster is?”

“No.”

“Then while you are searching for him, the Alliance would surely be searching for you.”

“But to be able to call him off. If I’d only known or
been faster, then maybe he wouldn’t have destroyed all those people. Maybe Gunnolf would still have his leg.”

“In time, perhaps, you could learn to control it. But that won’t be necessary.”

“What? Why not?”

But the answer didn’t come. Instead, a black van slammed into the front passenger door, sending Ferrante’s car into a spin.

And when it stopped, Nick saw Tariq and two other agents piling out of the van and racing toward the car with their weapons drawn.

“Stay in the car!” Ferrante shouted. “Stay in the car! The glass is bulletproof. We’re safe if we stay in the car!”

As if to prove the point, a bullet slammed into the window, creating an impact mark, but not shattering the glass.

“Move away from the door,” Nick said. “The bullets may penetrate metal. And get this damn thing started again,” he added, not inclined to sit in the street like a Christmas present for Tariq any longer than they had to.

Ferrante turned the key, and they were greeted with the sound of metal grinding against metal. He slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “Damn this blasted machine!”

“We need to get out of here,” Nick said. “For a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that the sun will be up soon.”

“It’s simply not starting,” Ferrante said, trying the key once again.

“The van?” Petra asked. “Do you think we could get to it?”

“No way. They’ll put a bullet through your head the second you open that door.”

“We have to do something,” she said.

“I’ll go,” Nick said.

“The hell you will!”

“Bullets won’t harm me. I have a solid chance.”

He saw the fear in her face, but knew he didn’t have a choice. He was about to tell her so when the car started to shake as the wind outside picked up.

Beside him, Petra sat up straighter. “Wind,” she said. But what she meant, Nick knew, was
Kiril.

He couldn’t see the sorcerer, but the storm raged faster, making their car shake and jump.

Tariq and his team tried to race back to the van, but the wind caught them, lifting them up like puppets. It twirled and twisted, spinning them so fast that Nick couldn’t keep focused on them. He found them again only when they burst from the wind tunnel.

Tariq flew through the air, a scream ripping from his throat as he landed—impaled—on an iron fence post. The other two slammed against the stone walls of nearby buildings and lay on the ground, not moving.

“Come on,” Petra said as the storm died. She opened her door before Nick could stop her, calling out for Kiril, who appeared from a copse of trees on the far side of the van. She ran to him, stopping only inches from him by the door to the van, and Nick heard her squeal
of delight and his relieved response. “Thank God I’ve found you safe.”

In front of Nick, Marco crossed out of his way to go to one of the Alliance agents whose fingers had begun twitching slightly. “Die!” Ferrante said, and then stabbed him through the heart with a knife Nick hadn’t even realized the older man had.

Then Ferrante looked at Tariq and the third agent. “Dead,” he said to Nick, then spat on the ground. “And good riddance.”

“I didn’t realize you had such disdain for the Alliance.”

“Ha!” Marco said. “They are all of them vile. I have nothing but disdain for the entire shadow world.”

Nick tilted his head and looked at his former mentor. “And for me.”

He saw Marco’s chin lift, then heard his soft, “Ah.” He shook his head. “Ah, Nicholas. I should have said the moment you entered my car that there is no animosity left between us.”

“You turned me away when I reached out to you before.”

“That was almost three centuries ago, and a man can change much in three hundred years.” He smiled. “I’ve had a lot of time to think and study, Nicholas. How can I judge you for taking the path you took? A dark one, for sure, but you were young, and I understand more about the shadow world now than I did then. It wasn’t the Nicholas I knew that killed our friend. It was the daemon. And the daemon has no friends.”

“Yes,” Nick said, humbled by Ferrante’s understanding. “You speak the truth.”

“I would be a hypocrite otherwise. After all, in the end, my way to immortality was also dark.” He nodded toward Petra, still with Kiril by the van. “You didn’t intend to bring out the daemon any more than I intended to curse that girl.”

Nick moved toward her and heard Kiril’s insistent tone. “We’re leaving now, Petra. I’m taking you away.”

“You’re not,” Nick said.