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Kadir snaked the loop of potency around Farouche’s neck again. “The businessman will spend time with me.”
“No,” Bryce said, interrupting Farouche’s gabbled protest. He dropped Paul’s fried tablet. “He’s mine.”
Farouche’s head snapped around as Bryce stepped forward, and relief filled his eyes. I didn’t have to read minds to know the thoughts going through his head: A little of the old fear-whammy and Bryce would be his dog again. Oh, dude, I thought with a whisper of bitter amusement. You have no idea.
I took a slight step back to defer to Bryce as Kadir turned a penetrating gaze on him. A chilling smile curved Kadir’s lips as he no doubt read Bryce’s claim and his intention. Kadir glanced to Farouche, gave the potency leash a brief tug. “Are you indeed his?”
Ignoring the leash as best he could, Farouche smiled, smugly confident. “Yes. Justice demands that Thatcher have custody of me. We have a long history.”
Bryce’s expression didn’t so much as flicker from the impassive mask as he regarded his former boss. “Yes, we have a long history.” He met Kadir’s eyes. “He’s mine,” he repeated.
I took another step back. Kadir narrowed his gaze at Bryce. “I understand he is yours,” he said through clenched teeth. “I acknowledge he is yours.” He reached to grip Farouche’s wrist in a tight grasp, and by the pain that flashed over the man’s face I knew it was just on the verge of bone-breaking. “But in this moment he is mine for facilitating this.” He gestured toward the unstable node, and I suddenly understood Kadir’s anger. He was OMG crazy and dangerous and unpredictable, but at the same time an order-and-rules freak—which was probably how he managed to function at all. The screwed up node was not only likely rule-breaking of the highest order but was also messy and threatened to fuck up the order of things in both worlds. His first action upon arrival had been to stabilize the node portal, and was probably the only reason he broke the rules and came through at all.
And now I realized why Kadir hadn’t joined the attack on Mzatal here, or accompanied the other Mraztur four months ago at Szerain’s palace when I performed the ritual to call Vsuhl. It was against the rules for the lords to engage in anything but one-on-one combat.
“In another moment he will be yours,” Kadir continued, then drew Farouche’s hand to his mouth in a smooth and powerful motion. Before Farouche had time to react, Kadir sunk his teeth into the flesh at the base of the man’s thumb and ripped a chunk free.
Farouche let out a hoarse scream as Kadir spat the gobbet at Bryce’s feet. Bryce didn’t shift away or react and kept his face utterly smooth and expressionless as Kadir tightened his grip on Farouche’s wrist with an audible crack of bones. Farouche screamed again, knees buckling as Kadir viciously wrenched his hand and then, merely by touching the man’s temple, roused him from a near faint to full awareness.
“Such a brief time, a moment,” Kadir murmured as he allowed the trembling Farouche to go to his knees, “yet so much can transpire.” He crouched, hissing low as the crisped flesh of his thigh crackled grotesquely, then reached and gripped Farouche’s balls, wringing another—higher—scream from Farouche as he squeezed and twisted hard.
Kadir held the man in this agonizing position, one hand squeezing the broken wrist and the other tightening on his nuts, until Farouche’s eyes rolled back in his head. Only then did Kadir release him, though immediately gripped him by his hair to again touch his temple and rouse him to full consciousness. But he wasn’t finished. He ripped Farouche’s shirt open, and as though reading from Farouche the torments he had inflicted on others, Kadir used potency to create four parallel slices in the man’s chest. Methodically, he ripped away the strips of flesh, wringing screams of agony from Farouche. He dropped the bloody strips to the ground, licked his fingers, and potency burned the remainder of the blood from them. He stood, hauling the gibbering Farouche upright, then shoved him to crumple at Bryce’s feet.
“And now the moment is yours,” Kadir stated and wiped the blood on his mouth away with the back of his hand. I kept my teeth clenched, pygahed desperately, and prayed I wouldn’t upchuck.
Bryce gave a slight nod, face still betraying absolutely nothing, which impressed the hell out of me considering my own reaction. “You’re finished with him?” he asked.
“I am.”
Bryce dropped his gaze to Farouche. “Mr. Farouche? Can you look at me please?”
Breathing in pained whimpers and cradling his arm to his chest, Farouche turned his head to look up at Bryce. His face shifted subtly, and I knew he was attempting to exert his influence, get Bryce back under his thumb—or what was left of it, I thought with a silent snigger.
Bryce met Farouche’s eyes, then drew his gun and shot him in the head.
I jerked, even though I’d known it was coming, but I managed not to startle when Bryce put a second round into the man’s skull.
Bryce exhaled softly and holstered his weapon again, tension slipping from his stance. He’d never intended to taunt Farouche or torture him, I realized. For Bryce, killing Farouche hadn’t been revenge. He’d killed the man to make sure no one else ever died on his order or suffered the way he and Sonny and Paul and countless others had.
Kadir’s gaze went from Bryce to me, then he spoke to me in demon. “Kara Gillian, shik-natahr, zharkat of Mzatal. There is no other but you to seal the node when I depart.”
I had no idea what “shik-natahr” meant. The tenuous grove connection hadn’t provided that meaning, but a glance at the node told me that leaving it unsealed was not a viable option.
“Tell me what t
o do,” I said.
He lifted his hand toward my temple, paused as I tensed. A faint smile of dry amusement touched his mouth. “I honor my agreement with Mzatal concerning you,” he stated. “I only wish to transfer that which you require in order to seal the node.”
Right. He wouldn’t fuck around with agreements or the condition of the node. I gave him a slight nod and controlled the automatic urge to pull back as he touched my temple. My vision flickered for the barest instant, and then he pulled away, turned, and limped off without another word. I waited a few seconds before following, instructions clear in my head for what to do. Kadir crouched, made a few adjustments to the flows surrounding the node, then stepped through and was gone. I crossed the rubble-littered ground to the gazebo platform and stood before the node portal. I shivered at the feel of the energy—as if the portal sought to pull me through from the inside out. I couldn’t even imagine how miserable traveling through one would be. I pygahed to ensure utmost focus, then quickly sketched the needed sigils and made the adjustments as if I’d been born knowing them. Three heartbeats later the portal aspect of the node narrowed, then closed with little more than a sub-audible pop.
I turned to Bryce. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 41
Somewhere in the numb void left by Mzatal, I found enough focus to keep going. We weren’t out of this yet, and the hint of distant sirens only emphasized that point. Bryce pulled a flashlight with a red filter from his pocket and lit our way as we double-timed it across Farouche’s property and to the hole Mzatal had melted in the tall and formidable metal fence. I felt Mzatal’s arcane signature as we passed through, like catching a whiff of cologne on a shirt. My chest tightened, and I slowed, but Bryce caught my elbow and urged me onward, over a rise and through a thick stand of bamboo to where an inflatable raft waited on the bank of the bayou that paralleled the fence line.
The rain was barely a light mist now, and stars glimmered to the west, peeking out from behind the retreating storm clouds. After we paddled our way across the sluggish bayou, Bryce pulled a knife and made three long gashes in the vinyl of the raft. Working quickly, we found several decent-sized rocks, rolled the shredded raft around them, then tossed it into the middle of the water to disappear beneath the mud-brown surface. Ryan would have done the same with the raft that had carried him, Sonny, and Angela across. No need to leave them on the shore and make it obvious that people had crossed.
