Grizz stopped at the door, one hand holding her in place, and looked at me. “Can you tell its location? Direction?”
I went still, standing by the sofa, fingertips on the arm to give me stability against the lingering vertigo from the bloodand the bitch-slap of the amulet. Images and feelings of death and loss. It was too late to stop it.
I closed my eyes and willed the potential future memory to me. “Street level. Could be back of the building. I’ve had flashes of cars blowing up since this started. But those flashes could have been from the flying bots, which did take out some vehicles. Or from a future assault strike, not this one. Wait.” I breathed, trying to pierce the mixture of emotion and tease out one single image. “I think it’s…a tracked military bot. Heavily shielded.”
Grizz sprinted from the room, barking that potential intel to the unit.
Boots followed her, leaving Villetti and me alone.
Ignoring him, I opened my closet, removed the queen’s armor, black and gold with touches of dark gray, matching war boots. A helmet. A Ballistic Off Body Bag, which I stuffed with amulets I picked up from around the apartment, placing each one in its specified pocket. I pulled on an extra pair of socks and applied my thumb to the armor’s biomarker opener. The armor separated from left thigh to right shoulder and down the back. I stepped into the ankles and the matching battle boots, pulled the onesie up and over my shoulders, shoved my arms into the sleeves, and sealed it. It was way faster to don, and much more efficient than my older, more basic personal armor. I slung my null cloak over my shoulders and took up my staff. It took all of forty-five seconds, and during that time, my brain went into overdrive.
Glancing at Villetti, still hungover, curled on the floor, I latched a gorget over my throat. Caught sight of my hands. Bone white. Ragged skin hanging off here and there. Later. I’d deal with that later. If I lived. I slapped on an ear-patch and headgear.
As I dressed, I caught more emotions, more images. Avarice, fear, desire. Images of snow, snow,snow, a whiteout of snow all around, burning, blistering, freezing white. In some images, I caught glimpses of buildings beyond the falling snow. In others there was blood splattered across the intense white blanket. In each vision, I was alone. But…in each, the electric was back on, windows glowing softly, streetlights working to push back the night. Without letting go of the impressions, I looked out the windows and watched as the power flickered and came on all along the street as the utilities were restored in this part of town. I closed my eyes again.
In some of the images there were bodies, and I didn’t know whose.No dead. I mouthed the words, as if I could command the future. Which I had never succeeded in doing.
In two of the sliced imagesIwas dead. “I’ll try to avoid that too,” I muttered to myself. I adjusted the cloak over my armor. It was too vibrant, too bright a shade of blue. I would be a target in the snow.
At the thought, I got a glimpse of something and stopped.Ohhh. I tapped my ear-patch to a private channel with my brother. “EJ. We were right and we were wrong. This isn’t a direct attack on us, or the queen, or the emperor. The people pushing this, encouraging this, they wantWalter. The urgency is all about gettingWalter. And not just Nyoka and Willim. The others want him too. Walter and that blasted brandhaveto stay inside and safe.”
EJ swore. “Why do they want him? What did yousee?”
I didn’t mention the glimpses of my own mangled body. “Walter being carried away through the snow, over Willim’s back, a stake in his belly, with Nyoka chasing behind. Willim wasn’t at Asshat’s just to fulfill an alliance to make Asshat a master of a city, but to do some backstabbing. To get closeenough to take Walter. And Nyoka was there to…probably to do several things at once, but also to save Walter. Except she got herself possessed. And Konstantin…He wants Walter. He wants that brand and thegeasin it.”
“Why?”
The thought came fast. “The first layer of thegeaswas about forgetting the pain of the branding and the degradation of that night. The next layers were about love and controlling Walter for herself. But…”
Myknowingstrengthened. “By happenstance, thegeascan strengthen the working of the elixir, and the bad guys figured that out and want to see how Walter handles possession.” I breathed out. “What if thegeasin the brand allows Walter, with the elixir in his system, to fully control demons while possessed and not have to be killed and the demon recaptured?”
“Hell’s hounds,” EJ cursed.
From the floor, Villetti crawled onto the sofa and shoved a pillow against his stomach. Bending over it into the fetal position, he groaned quietly and held his head in both hands.
EJ said, “The Rus used an elixir in the war. They called the ones who survived, ‘demon riders’ and then they shot them. If Walter’s brand gives him the power to fully control demons, they’ll never let him go.”
“So why was an elixir at Londyn’s?” Walter asked, standing at my open door. I hadn’t heard it open. His brand was shining with a bright greenish-bluish glow.
Adrenaline kicked into me. Fight or flight. Walter wouldn’t attack me, but that glow meant something vital. Hisgeashad been fully activated. I had seen him in all of my potentialities, staked, being carried away. I had to stop that from happening. One hand hidden beneath the cloak, I removed an amulet from an inside pocket. As my fingers touched it, several of thefeelingsslipped away. The futures realigned for Walter. And for me. I said, “Second question—what does this have to do with our subject, Ivyanna Holmes?”
“Speculate later,” EJ demanded into the ear-patch.
“I have to be outside, on the street behind the building, in four minutes,” I said, ending comms. My eyes were on Walter.
From the couch, Villetti said, “I’ve called in backup, but they’ll be limited and slow.” When I didn’t reply or look his way, he said, gently, “Angelina.Tesoro mio.”
It was the tone that nearly broke me. The breath I took juddered in my chest.
Without asking, Walter stepped inside my apartment. Walking toward me. No…Walking toward the doors to the porch and the storm outside and the…and the coming attack by the tracked land drone in the snow.
His brand flared a bright emerald green. That color was the same shade as the glow at the queen’s reception. It was the same color as the emerald ring Nyoka had worn, on the fingers that had been cut off.
I updated that information into comms and added, “Somebody get that ring and crush the stone. I think it’s in EJ’s apartment.”
“In the black stone box in the center of the kitchen table,” EJ said.
“Copy that,” Peewee said. “Entering your apartment to locate.”
