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Whatever spell had bound Nicky in place broke, and he beckoned for me to follow him. He led the way through a door labeled for Employees Only, and up a flight of cement stairs. They opened up to a rooftop access.
I walked out into the darkness of the roof, my eyes adjusting to the sudden lack of light. If Nicky wanted to exterminate me, now was his chance. No one would see us on this roof. I doubted anyone would come if I screamed. We were all alone.
A muffled shout came from behind me. I spun to see Johnny standing with his hands bound, and a piece of silver duct tape across his mouth. His eyes blazed with terror. If I’d been afraid before, it was nothing compared to now.
Johnny was my rock. He was the type of roommate who would be the first to take out a burglar or tackle the purse thief on the street. I’d always thought of him as fearless. If he was scared, I had no chance.
Nicky stood next to him, waving a knife in his hands like it was a toy. He rested his lean body against a heating unit, one leg on the ground and the other bent, resting casually on the grate protecting the heater. A thin white scar that I hadn’t seen before ran from his temple to his mouth, as if someone or something had tried to peel his skin off.
“Hey, sis. Glad you could make it.”
The tone of his voice filled my head with rage. This was no joke.
“What do you think you’re doing? Let him go.”
Nicky frowned, dropping his foot to the ground. A long bronze chain with an oval pendant hung from his neck. “I don’t plan on hurting him. I just had to make sure the SI didn’t follow you here. I know they’ve been talking to you
.”
I didn’t have a clue how Nicky knew that, but that was the least of my current problems.
“Well, they’re not here. Let Johnny go.”
Nicky grinned. It pulled at my heart to see that old smile. Even though I knew his tricks, he’d still been able to work his charms on me a time or two.
“Not yet, Little Bird. Although I’m glad you didn’t bring Agent Ward. I would’ve been very disappointed to have my own sister turn me in.”
Something in the way he looked at me told me Nicky knew I’d never turn him in. He raised an eyebrow at me, mischief twinkling in his eyes.
“What do you want from me, Nicky?” Even I could hear the weariness heavy on my voice. I didn’t want to play his games. “Why are you doing this? How could you kill those people? I thought you were better than that.”
“I didn’t kill them!”
Nicky took a step forward, the muscles in his arms tensing beneath his fitted long sleeved t-shirt. I flinched and retreated a step, watching the knife dangling between his fingers.
He blew a controlled breath through his lips and relaxed his shoulders. “I mean, I didn’t kill your neighbors. That was someone else. Someone I shouldn’t have trusted with my secrets.”
“Who killed them, then?” I cocked my head at him. Surely he didn’t expect me to believe that someone else had murdered Mr. and Mrs. Yonas with the same M.O. he’d been using for the past several years.
“I know him by the name of Theo, but I’m not sure if it’s his real name,” Nicky said in a flat tone, as if reciting a dull story. “We met in a bar outside Helena a year ago. We got to talking and eventually, he confessed to me that he held many of my beliefs. He felt the same about the evil supernatural that walk among us. He’s a Gorgon. I thought I could trust him. Could train him. So, I took him under my wing.”
My eyes trailed to Johnny’s, who was sitting and shaking his head. He didn’t seem to be buying my brother’s innocent act either.
“So, you trained this Theo guy to murder?”
Nicky hissed, switching the knife to his right hand. “Not murder. I trained him to hunt down evil and exterminate it. There’s a difference.”
With Johnny on the other side of the roof and Nicky between us, I didn’t want to argue the point. “Okay, so you trained him. Are you saying he went off track and took the Yonas family?”
“Yes. He disappeared a month ago when we were tracking a pair of demons up in North Dakota. I thought they’d killed him. Imagine my surprise when I heard through the grapevine that he’d survived North Dakota. That he was going rogue, and harvesting powers for his own.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek, disgust clouding his face. “I tracked him to Arcana when I heard about the single raven’s feather left at the scene. That was my calling card, not his. He didn’t have a right to use it.”
I had to admit, the snakes in my vision made more sense now. If Theo was a Gorgon, he was related to Medusa, the most famous Gorgon of them all. Greek myths described Medusa as having a head full of snakes. We had ancient pottery at the museum with Medusa’s head painted on them, snakes and all. But, I wasn’t convinced yet.
“How do you know it was him?” I asked. “Anyone could’ve copied that. Left a feather to pin it on you.”
With the pale light of the moon, I spotted a lead pipe in the shadows to my right. If I inched close enough, I could grab it.
A cocky grin spread across his face. “The SI keeps that fact under wraps. I know because I have my own contacts in their organization.”
