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Of course, I hadn’t thought of that either. Prescott had been Manea’s cleric for twenty years, starting when he was eight, and as far as I knew there still wasn’t an initiate in line to replace him. The one benefit of being a Death’s Hand, however, was she could keep him alive as long as it took to bring up a replacement.
“So she told you about the deaths.” She would be the first to know, after all, since she knew about all deaths as they happened.
“Yes.”
“Specifically the Rain Chaser.”
“Well…”
“Well what?”
His fingers twitched nervously on the table, and for the first time since he’d sat down he wouldn’t look right at me.
“She mentioned them more in broad terms. But when she told me a Rain Chaser was involved, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I went quiet. “Prescott. Two months ago you tried to kill me yourself.”
“No.”
“You almost drove me off a highway.”
“No, I was following you, but killing you wasn’t my objective. I just wanted the idol back. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
I gaped at him. “I’m supposed to believe you suddenly care so much about my well-being all because a Rain Chaser was killed? That’s why you sent some creep to follow me? As if that’s so much easier to believe than you paying some schmuck to kick the crap out of me so you wouldn’t look guilty of killing that girl on the beach.”
Prescott looked right at me this time, absorbing every word I said, before saying, “I didn’t kill her, or any of the others.”
“Okay.” I believed him, but I kept my poker face up.
“But I had a good reason to have you followed.”
“I bet. Let’s hear it.”
“I think you might be next.”
Chapter Seven
There wasn’t enough whiskey left between my glass and Leo’s to make Prescott’s statement easier to swallow.
I drank it anyway.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I wiped a small drop of the expensive Irish liquor off my lip and gave him what I hoped was a withering glare. “You think I might be next. Aren’t you in a position to know?”
He squirmed uncomfortably, so either my stare or my tone was having the right effect. I’m told it’s a rare kind of person who can set death on edge, but I sure had a habit of getting under Prescott’s skin when the occasion called for it.
“I haven’t heard anything, so no, you’re not on a list.”
“And yet…”
“Look, none of these kids were killed by Manea’s hand. Murders are still something a little outside her realm. She’ll take the souls, but this isn’t how she operates, you should know that.”
“I try to know as little about how you do business as possible.”
“For like two seconds could you pretend not to totally hate me and just listen to what I’m saying?”
The funny thing was, I didn’t hate him. I didn’t trust him either, but I don’t know that I’d ever hated him. Once I might have even fancied myself in love with him, but I hated myself for that more than him. I’d been so stupid when I was seventeen, and gods help me but he was a beautiful, beautiful man.
And honestly, if you’re going to give up your temple purity—which we’re all told could be punishable by death—why not give it up to someone with the power to kill you?
