26. Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

B y the time we reached Roger’s plane, the last of my adrenaline had worn down to the point where the aggression was gone, mostly replaced by exhaustion. I had just…holy shit. I’d just blown up a car. Well, I hadn’t blown up a car, but someone had blown up a car on my orders. It was a spiral of flame and hate and violence, and I’d fed right into it, and yeah, that wasn’t really my fault, but it still didn’t make me feel good.

My mother was about the most nonviolent person I’d ever met. The only time she’d hurt someone that I knew of was when she came for me after I got snatched as a kid. Even then she’d only hurt them indirectly, with her beater of a car doing most of the work. The sight of blood made her feel faint, and she was as close to vegan as you could get without giving up eggs.

I didn’t know if it was circumstance or inherited traits from the father I’d never met, but while I had way more of a taste for mayhem than Mom, even I knew I was going to be bumping up against my limits soon. The dice had been cast, the wheel was turning, and I didn’t know what the end result was going to be. My vision had never been so blurred before—every new decision coming with consequences I couldn’t suss out, because I’d dragged everyone I knew into the maelstrom with me.

What I wouldn’t have given to be making my living as a fucking fortune teller right now. I stared out the reinforced window of the armored car and wondered where the hell Marisol had gotten to. She’d known this was coming—she’d known this was going to happen. Not the specifics, but she’d known, and she’d gotten herself the hell out of Dodge.

I was so grateful she’d told me. One less thing for me to worry about, and I had enough to keep myself occupied thinking about S?ren and his relentless family, what I was going to have to do in Chicago to free S?ren from his father, and what I was going to do about the sacrifice… Time was running short, but all I could think about was Marisol’s shop and the apartment in the back, Tavo’s room that had become mine, and how maybe if I hadn’t run off with one of Marisol’s little bronze Buddhas, the protection spell woven in them might have held off the Egilssons.

I absently riffled through the bottom of the duffel bag at my feet, fingers searching until they found—yep. Still had it. I picked the Buddha figurine out and weighed it in my hand, measuring out the cost of people’s lives against it: the loss of a home, a job, a future. Gauzy curtains and claw-foot bathtubs, shelves filled with tchotchkes and spiritual ephemera and the air full of the spicy scent of rice and beans, or the sweetness of coffee and pancakes. The closest thing I’d had to a home, burned to a shell. My hand squeezed tight around the figurine.

“It’s a pretty favor,” S?ren said from his place next to me.

“Hmm?”

“The talisman. The favor is well-woven into it. You could have used it earlier, you know. It would have eased your path.”

I didn’t know what he was referring to. “What favor?”

“The protection within it. The power is small, but very targeted.”

“Is it?” I looked at the Buddha a little more appreciatively. I knew Marisol had bitched about me ruining her protection scheme, but I hadn’t imagined that I’d brought a little bit of it with me. I put the bronze in my pocket.

“Our time is drawing down.”

“I know,” I murmured.

“You spoke very well to Jakob, but words will not save you from ólafur. You need to have a plan.”

“I’m working on that.”

“Cillian…”

“Why do you care?” I snapped. “The more I think about it, the more it seems like all you’re after is the fight. You want to be the center of attention, and our conflict makes you happy, doesn’t it? Isn’t this exactly what you want?”

“I do want to be desired,” S?ren said. “I want to belong to the strongest, for that will better safeguard my own existence. But that doesn’t mean there are no preferences involved. And the more I think about it, the more I know that I, and S?ren, would be happier with you. You let me do things like drive cars and go to amusement parks and eat at Denny’s. I like all of these things very much, and S?ren would be devastated if you died. I might have to keep him asleep if it happens, and that would be very lonely for me.”

Lonely. Yeah. Fuck, I felt tired. I wanted to take what the landv?ttir was saying the way he meant it, with all the earnestness something that wasn’t human could probably have in this situation. As it was, I was fighting not to be resentful. Only the reminder of S?ren inside of this creature, and how he felt about things, kept me from snapping something now.

“Well, that’s something.”

S?ren looked like he wanted to say more, but we were arriving at the airfield now. It was small, with a little tower and hangar beside a single runway. There were only two planes visible, in fact―one a luxurious-looking private jet, the other a bulky cargo plane with an open back hatch and a few people milling around outside of it. One of them was a woman with what I’d call “Texas hair,” teased big and dyed blonde, wearing a teal pantsuit and toting a pair of pink gun holsters. She was…adorably scary, if that was even a thing. She smiled widely as we drove up and got out.

“Honeybun! Well, that was quick, huh?”

Roger walked right over to her, a matching grin on his face. “Hey, darlin’!” They kissed loud and smackingly, and the well-armed people around them—two of them were women, actually, and they were just as competent-looking as the men—all smiled from the secondhand cuteness. “Yeah, no problems. I love those little microgrenades, by the way, real convenient when you want to do some very targeted damage.”

“Aren’t they lovely?” she purred. “I’ve got an order in for another couple thousand. I reckon they’ll be real useful in urban combat situations. Now, who’s the friend you had to rush out here and save?”

“Ah, right. Cillian!” He beckoned me over, and I came, feeling a little bit like a kid being introduced to a new teacher. “Annie, this is Cillian Kelly. He’s the lucky charm I told you about. Made me a lot of money and kept me from being shot to hell not too long ago.”

She rolled her eyes at her husband. “That’s what you get for gambling when you should be doing somethin’ safe, like drinkin’.”

“In my defense, I was doing both.”

“Oh, I bet you were.” She turned and held a tiny hand out to me. “Lovely to meet you! I’m Annabelle Vandermoor, but my friends call me Annie.”

“Hi, Annie.” She had a surprisingly firm grip. “Thanks for lending us your husband. S?ren and I would definitely have been in trouble without Roger’s timely arrival.”

“My honey’s a good guy,” she said. “And you’re the boy givin’ everyone fits, huh?” she asked S?ren.

“I…think so?”

“Way to keep life interesting!” She patted his shoulder. “Y’all come aboard the jet. There’re drinks waiting. I daresay there’re some other things you want to ask, but we oughta get to know each other a little first, right?” She led the way up into the plane, and Roger followed, stars in his eyes. I glanced at S?ren, who looked at me and shrugged.

“I suppose we should accompany them.”

“Guess so.” I did have a few more things to ask for, after all. We followed them up the little ladder and into a plane that was more blinged out than anything I’d been in for nearly a decade, with red velvet seat covers and shiny bronzed cow skulls on the walls. Annie got us all drinks, and then we sat down, and I learned a little more about exactly how awesome she actually was.

Annie, it turned out, wasn’t solely a millionaire’s wife. She was an entrepreneur who ran the private security company her father had founded and had been in charge of it for the past ten years. She was also an Iraq war veteran, a licensed helicopter pilot, and apparently a crack shot with a pistol.

“My friends called me Annie Oakley growing up,” she said fondly. “I always thought it was a lovely compliment.” Annie’s company, Snakebite Security, had offices in over twenty states and provided security to everyone from traveling business people to diplomats to celebrities. And they had an office in Chicago. Excellent.

“Now, I don’t personally hold much with luck―I’ve never found it to be reliable in a firefight,” she said bluntly. “But you saved my man’s life, and you seem like a nice boy, so I’m willin’ to hear you out.”

“I didn’t say I needed anything else,” I pointed out.

Annie snorted. “Honey, please. I’ve negotiated with terrorists―I’m used to lookin’ for tells. You still want somethin’.”

I stared at her. “You’re kind of frightening.”

“She’s the scariest little thing in high heels,” Roger said adoringly. “Nobody messes with Annie twice, that’s for sure.”

“I believe it.” I marshaled my thoughts. “Okay. There’s a man in Chicago. His name is Andre Jones. First things first, I need to know what’s happening with him and his family.” This would set the arc of all my future actions in motion. “If he’s not responding but his family is, I need them put into protective custody. Or at the very least, moved out of Chicago to somewhere they’re less likely to be found for a couple of days.”

“Hmm. Have you got a number?”

“Yeah, and an address.” I gave both to her, thanking my past self for all the work I’d put into my memory tricks.

“Do you think his family will be amenable to being in protection?”

“I…have no idea.” Except I kind of did. “He’s a wartime reporter, just tell them it has to do with, I don’t know, Syria or something. Afghanistan, maybe.”

“And should I mention you?”

“No, they don’t know about me.” Annie was being as surprisingly amenable as her husband. “Why are you going along with this so easily?”

“Two reasons, darlin’. One, my Roger’s vouched for you, and that’s good enough for me. And two, speed is essential when it comes to success in an operation like this, so the less we sit around with our thumbs up our butts, the better.” She started tapping on her phone, bright pink nails clacking, and I watched with helpless gratitude.

“Hi there, Natasha, it’s Annie. Yeah! Oh, you bet, honey. Mm-hmm. And the kids? Great, great, give Zane all my love, yeah. Listen, honey, I need you to handle a little situation for me out in your neck of the woods.”

It took all of five minutes for Annie to get a crew together to go to Andre’s house. Half an hour later, they reported back in. Andre’s wife and baby were fine, if very worried and confused, and Andre himself hadn’t been home in twelve hours and was no longer answering his phone.

That settled that. They’d found him, found him before Jakob ever came and threatened me here, and had snatched him up as a hostage without bothering to tell me. It made me feel way better about my mom and Marisol’s chances, and way worse about Andre’s, but I had a plan. The beginnings of a plan, anyway.

S?ren touched my arm and smiled at me. “You already arranged for a sacrifice!” he whispered excitedly. I felt sick, witnessing his glee. “It’s perfect!”

It was so, so far from perfect, but I wasn’t ready to confess anything to S?ren yet.

I shifted in my chair so the little Buddha dug less into my hip and looked over at Roger and Annie. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to fly us to Chicago?”

“Hell, son,” Roger drawled. “All you had to do was ask.”