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He turns back toward one of the men, and he signs something else. Five men disappear around back, and Victor motions to three of them behind me. Apparently everyone has learned sign language except for me.
He sighs as he puts his hands on his hips and looks at me again.
“It’s really a shame to see this. First your father. Now you. Both of you jaded and entertaining the enemy like they’re something other than monsters.”
“Monsters?” I snarl. “Those monsters didn’t kill innocent people, torture others, and kidnap children.” Then the rest of his words resonate, and my heart sinks in my chest. “My father?”
His cold smile goes back into place. “Obviously your weak-minded mother wasn’t an Aquarius. No. Your father was. Your mother was from another line of anointed. But your father’s blood… His was strong. Pure. Until he fucked it all up just like you have. It’s like you dumb assholes just can’t help yourselves.”
I tilt my head, trying to process what he’s saying.
“You killed him?” I ask, even though it’s nothing more than a broken whisper.
“He’d already abandoned you, darlin’,” he drawls, rolling his eyes as though I’m pathetic. “He was shacking up with a succubus when I found him. He told me we could all be friends, and his line would end if he didn’t try to make peace between our sides. He didn’t deserve to live, and cleansing the blood… That’s just a myth. That hex isn’t going anywhere.”
My knees buckle, and I drop to the ground.
“Aunt Masie?”
“She never knew,” he says around a laugh. “She never had a clue. She assumed her brother just ran off to play hero and got killed in action.”
So much… Too much…
I look up at him, feeling a weight so heavy in my chest that I can barely breathe. He cocks an eyebrow.
“That’s right, Leah. Masie was your father’s sister. Not your mother’s. I kept telling Masie she had to get your mother ready, and she listened to me. Masie tried so hard to make your mother see what she was. One day, it worked. Your mother’s brain cracked like an egg, and it drove her mad when she couldn’t stop seeing the monsters around her. That’s a rare gift to waste. Seeing them—I mean.”
He kneels before me, putting us eye-level again. “Tell me where they put Wendy’s amulet.”
My head is reeling, and words are seeming to lag, catching up to me at a slower pace than he’s speaking them.
“Who?” I whisper hoarsely, even though it’s more of an automatic response at this point.
“The anointed they killed. Where’s her amulet? She came here for her cousin and then this—” He points at his crystal that is hanging from his neck in a silver casing. “—lit up red and guided us toward here. She’s dead. We all felt her death when it happened, too. Somewhere, they have her amulet. It’s very important we find it, because we can actually see them all the time if we get that back.”
Amulets. My father. My aunt’s lies… It’s just too damn much.
I leap up from the ground, diving on top of him in a tackling motion, and my fist slams into his face with so much force that something crunches. Curses spew, and something hard zaps into my back.
Hot fire and sharp pains force me to cry out before I’m convulsing uncontrollably. My fingertips feel like they’re about to explode, and so do my toes. It seems like hours instead of seconds before the agonizing pain stops and fades into aftershocks.
“She broke my fucking nose, you stupid sons of bitches!” Victor roars.
Even though my body is still jerking, feeling freshly electrocuted, a sense of satisfaction swells with in me as I look up to see blood streaming from his nose.
“She really is strong.”
“She’s a fucking Aquarius,” he snarls. “Of course she’s strong.”
My tongue feels like it’s on fire and dry as a desert at the same time, and I cough on tiny spurts of air while trying to force my body to quit jerking around.
“Obviously chitchat time is over,” one guys says with a hidden smile. “What do you want us to do with her?”
“Lock her up,” Victor growls. “Keep her downstairs. Make sure to chain her. She can walk past seals, but she can’t undo chains.”
He spits out blood and twists to sign something.
“They’ll come for her,” he goes on, wiping his nose and wincing as he faces the group. “This is the mother lode. Be prepared, boys. We’ve been training for this day for a long, long time.”
