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He shook his head. “With the women, I usually spend some time to get them comfortable, anything up to an hour or so, depending on what they need.” Guilt clawed across his face again.
“You did your best for them,” I said gently. “You weren’t simply taking care of the merchandise. You did everything you could to make a horrible situation a little less horrible. And the very fact that you came back here to help us proves you’re a decent person and a fucking brave one at that.”
“It has to stop. Not only for me. For everyone.”
“We’ll stop it,” I promised, then bared my teeth in a hard smile. “It will rain fire, and we’ll kick all the ass.”
He let out a dry laugh, then glanced at his watch. “Let’s do this. Carter will be on the desk. I’ll walk you in as if I’m taking you to see the boss. I’ll get you inside, then I’ll get him away to give you time to get into the server room.”
“Got it.” I went to the mirror, adjusted the wig to make certain no stray brown hairs poked out, and dabbed away a bit of smeared makeup under my eyes. Amaryllis had pretty eyes. My reflection gave a shy smile—
I jerked my eyes from the mirror. “Paul,” I muttered.
Somehow he knew. “Kara,” he replied, firm and certain. “You’re Kara.”
Kara. I’m Kara. I moved to the kitchen area and filled a tumbler with water, gulped half of it down through a mouth dry as sand. Kara.
“Kara,” Paul echoed.
I focused on deep and regular breaths until I felt like myself again. “Thanks, Paul,” I said quietly. “Y’all ready?”
“Ready,” Paul replied.
I turned and gave Sonny a nod. “Let’s go.”
He took my elbow. “Last time I’ll ever lead a woman into that house.”
“Last time anyone will.”
Chapter 38
Sonny didn’t put the hood back on me, probably because once a “permanent” abductee was here, it didn’t matter what they saw. He kept hold of my arm and walked me along a curving brick sidewalk toward the lovely three-story Farouche Plantation house.
Farouche. A self-serving southern gentleman crime boss allied with demonic lords while masquerading as a philanthropic businessman. Too weird.
Numerous graceful wrought iron lamps cast soft, warm light on the grounds and brought out the color in gorgeous well-tended flower beds. To my left a small lake glimmered, and I picked out a dock with a flatboat moored to it. Off to my right stood several larger buildings, all either converted from original plantation structures or built in the same style. I remembered them from the satellite photo as the gym, pool, and shooting range.
I noted the barest shift in the shadowy leaves of an oak by the lake; Eilahn, letting me know she was in place. Paul continued to say my name into my ear about once every minute. Props to him for remembering my implanted rakkuhr virus on top of everything else he was tracking.
As we continued on, I marveled at the lovely gazebo that stood between the lake and the main house. Tiny white fairy lights wrapped pale marble columns and created the illusion of a star field on the underside of its domed slate roof. A ripple like a mirage distorted the lights for a fraction of a second.
I blinked. Had I actually seen it ripple? Then I felt it, an arcane touch like the whisper of silk against my skin. I tugged Sonny toward the gazebo, but he tugged right back.
“Can’t go there,” he told me, voice low. “It would draw instant attention.”
I pursed my lips. “Surely no rule about fixing my shoe.” I bent and pretended to adjust a strap while I snuck a better look at the gazebo with othersight. Blues and greens coiled sluggishly in the center of the marble platform, arcane vapor rising and falling above it like the breath of a giant. No mistaking that.
“Paul, the node is at the gazebo,” I muttered. The latitude and longitude from Tracy Gordon’s journal had only narrowed the location of the node to the back lawn of the plantation. “And it’s, uh, breathing.”
“Okay. Got it, Kara,” Paul replied. “I’ll let Mzatal know.”
I counted columns, then quickly counted again. Shit. “Tell him it has eleven columns. He’ll understand.”
“We need to move,” Sonny said with an edge of anxiety in his voice.
I stood and made a show of testing the shoe, then continued toward the house. “Sorry,” I said quietly. “I had to check that out. We didn’t know exactly where it was.”
The more I saw of the house and grounds, the more the place felt like a pleasant resort. Yet I knew that not far from my room, a building designed for torture and murder hunkered beyond a screen of shrubbery and a security fence. Some resort.
