Page 49
Everyone dreaded the convoy of military vehicles arriving. Silence stretched long and thin as they took up formation down the street, shoving the media and civilians back behind a new line of camouflage and authority. What little evidence we’d gathered was about to be ripped out of our hands and shoved behind bureaucratic red tape.
I clenched my jaw tight and forced myself to greet Major General Phelps.
“Sir.”
“Agent Mao.” The general’s gaze slid over me, cold and assessing. “I’m surprised you’re still on your feet, given the recent loss of your mate.” That Jude had been my mate, and I’d already served my time in the military had been what kept the man from forcing Jude into special dark ops. And there was a challenge in his statement. An accusation. As if he was saying we hadn’t really been mated.
I met his gaze. “We all want this over sooner rather than later. This cult has already done too much damage. And we’re running out of time.”
“Since we’ll be taking over the scene, you have plenty of time,” the general corrected. “Unless you’d like to rejoin my ranks?”
I snorted and lifted my damaged hand, then peeled back the glove to reveal the crawling black veins and atrophied skin clinging to the bones. It looked worse than it felt, and I was glad for the numbness. “I wouldn’t meet the physical standards.”
His eyes went wide, his smirk turning to a frown. “That’s not a fade.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s Erlik’s corruption. Him eating the remains of my mate, and through Jude, me.” I flexed my fingers. The movement was slow, stiff, painful. “So when I say I want this over, General, I mean I want it over. Before there’s nothing left of me to bury.”
Phelps was quiet for a long moment. The convoy idled behind him, engines rumbling, soldiers watching from behind dark sunglasses.
“I have no intention of abandoning this case,” I added. “You understand how little I have left to lose.”
He nodded, slow and measured. But his gaze didn’t leave my hand, even as I tugged the glove back on.
“Is it contagious?”
The question caught me off guard. But that made sense, didn’t it? We’d just found a giant stash of bodies not all that unlike what was progressing through my hand. Some little more than blackened shells, perhaps burned to stop the spread? Was it a disease? More likely a parasite that went by the name Erlik.
I looked down at my gloved hand. Thought about the hospital. The girl. The stain I’d pulled out of her that had latched onto me instead. Could it have done this to her? Probably. Slowly.
Why was it progressing faster in me? Because of my tie to Jude? Or something else?
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
They were all tied to Jude. Thanks to the spell he’d used to save them from Cassidy’s death curse. If Erlik’s corruption could reach me through our bond, what was stopping it from reaching the others through the protection spell?
Did that mean we’d all eventually fall?
Phelps’s jaw tightened. His gaze swept from his soldiers to the SED teams to me.
“What I know,” I said, “is that I need to find Erlik. Sooner rather than later.” I clenched my damaged hand, felt the blackened veins pull tight beneath the skin. “And I have more incentive than any of your toy soldiers ever will, to find and stop this cult and their death spree.”
He met my gaze. “I’ll let the SED take lead, but I want daily reports. And when you fall… it becomes ours completely.”
I shrugged, since I’d be dead and it wouldn’t matter to me. “Understood.”
He turned and walked back to his convoy, barking orders at his subordinates as he went, instructing the team to assist us rather than taking over. I breathed a sigh of relief, though exhaustion and pain were grinding me down.
Victor said nothing. He didn’t have to. We had work to do, and I wasn’t stopping until I collapsed or an answer fell in my lap.
My phone rang. The screen flashed with Xavier’s name. The ringtone blared “Bodies Hit the Floor.”
My gut clenched.
He never called me.
I answered before the second ring. “What’s wrong?”
“Ivan’s missing.” Xavier’s voice was stripped of its usual control and sounded strained, near panic, very unlike him.
