Keepers & Killers (The Alchemy Series) (22 page)

The defectors were upon us before I could respond. They nodded in greeting. "We
're here to pay our respects."

"Then do so and get out," Cormac replied in a tone closer to a growl.

"Thank you," I replied. "It's a nice gesture." Cormac bristled beside me as I said the words. He had a right to be upset with them but it didn't change a thing.

"I
'd like to speak with you both," Linus said.

"Sure," I answered. Cormac didn
't say no. We both looked at him and he still didn't seem to feel it necessary to speak. That was as good as it was going to get from him.

"We know what you did with the…" Linus paused.

"I like to call them space holes."

"We know you closed the smaller one. We
've done some recon. We know how hard that must have been."

"And?" Cormac was not going to make this easy.

"We want to help you with the others."

"It changes nothing," Cormac told him.

"We aren't asking for that."

"Fine. Be in touch in two days from now."

Linus, and the few of his people that had hovered close enough to hear, walked away, back to the safety of the group.

We waited another hour or so before everyone left
then we all drove back to The Lacard.

The streets were still empty, except for a few stragglers who carried duffle bags
; they were clearly out looking for supplies before they went back to their hidey holes. Vegas was shut down, for all intents and purposes, like I'd never seen in my lifetime. It wouldn't be nearly as scary if I knew that I'd be able to kill the senator and put an end to this.

The Lacard
, in contrast, was fully staffed today, not that it mattered. Nobody was out gambling anyway. I think as things got scarier, the staff thought this place was safer than most and were just looking for a reason to be here. Even before I actually knew anything about wormholes or aliens, wolves and Fae, there had always been this underlying current. It wasn't something you could explain to an outsider, we hadn't discussed it in the staff room, it was just a feeling that if the shit ever went down, this would be a bastion in the storm.

I looked
at Cormac out of the corner of my eye as we climbed into the elevator with Dodd and Buzz. He was an angel and devil wrapped into one. The good was he'd keep everyone safe and together. The bad? He'd do it at any cost, even if he had to become the devil himself.

The doors slid open and Buzz and Dodd got out.

"I had to do it," Cormac said, as he beat me to the punch before we were even alone.

"How did you know?"

"Because it's very hard to hide something from someone as old as I am. I knew exactly what Vitor was telling you."

"You don
't do something like that without telling someone," I started to scream.

"It
's not forever. Would you have preferred to be stuck under Vitor's control? It was the only way to stop it."

"That doesn
't make it right."

"I didn
't lie. I just didn't explain the whole thing."

"How long does it last?"

"Five years."

"What!"

"Five years is nothing in our lifespan."

"Why five?"

"Because you would be twenty-eight by then and out of Vitor's reach. There was no other way."

"I want it broken like you said you would break all of them."

"So you can go stay with Vitor? No."

"Because I don
't care what the Fae think of as legal age. I'm a grown adult and I'm sick of someone always trying to rule my world."

"If you want me to break it I will, but it won
't end up being the only thing broken if Vitor thinks he's going to force the issue." His eyes were deadly when he said his next words. "Choose wisely."

The elevator doors opened to the penthouse floor and instead of walking to his apartment he made a left to the rooftop stairs.

"Don't walk away from me, I'm not done."

"I
'm not. I'm going to the roof. You're welcome to come," he said as he continued on his way.

I watched the door to the stairway hang open and knew he
was waiting for me.

I rounded the corner and he stood there. "I
'm too tired to fight. This is my retreat. If that's what you are looking for, don't come. I promise I'll fight with you later, all you want."

It hit me suddenly, I
'd never even realized that he might be the one mourning for Hammond. I'd barely known him but he had been a father figure of sorts to Cormac. I watched with fresh eyes as he climbed the stairs and walked toward the large weeping willow that sat by the edge of the roof. He sat on the bench underneath, just staring outward at the strip and the mountains beyond.

"I
'm sorry," I said as I sat next to him. "I didn't realize what he meant to you."

He didn
't speak and I didn't force him to. When I would've left, he touched my shoulder, silently asking me to stay. I stayed until the sunset warmed the sky, neither of us saying a word.

Chapter Seventeen

The details of the contract weren
't as bad as I'd thought. It was really pretty cut and dry actually, as long as I didn't sleep with him, we wouldn't be married, beginning and end of it. Of course, I couldn't read the damn thing and he'd proven to be a little less than honest at times to meet his own ends, but I was going to accept it at face value. Partly because it was what I wanted to believe, and the other larger part was because I just couldn't handle another issue on top of what I already had going on.

The defected Keepers called in two days
, as Cormac had told them to, and then two days after that. Problem was, we couldn't figure out a plan to get to the senator. He had nothing public scheduled for the indefinite future. As gruesome as it might sound, it needed to be a public execution. Odds were against us being able to take him down in the first attempt. If we could at least out him for what he was, it would drive him more into the open. Secret Service wouldn't be protecting a monster. He'd lose his offices and security. His family was another question altogether. I personally wondered if they even were his family.

Th
ere I was, countless days after the first space hole appeared, weeks after the senator killed Rick, and we finally got a break. I sat, curled up on the couch, searching online and there it was; the senator had announced he'd be holding a televised appearance, around the corner from his office. He said in the press release that he was doing it to show his supporters that everything would be okay.

I wasn
't buying it. There was an angle, I just didn't know what it was.

I dialed out but
the call didn't go through. The cell service had become very sketchy; I wasn't sure if it was because they didn't have enough people to maintain the grid or if the space holes were messing with the signal. I grabbed the weird phone Cormac had given me yesterday. It wasn't as pretty as my iPhone, but I knew it would work.

Cormac
's guys had erected a cell tower on top of the roof and on several other properties he owned. We now had the smallest cell service provider available but it was the most reliable. I knew what the implications were of what he was doing. It was for the same reason I had inventoried how much gas was in his private garage.

"Where are you?" I asked when he answered.

"Setting up more tower locations."

"We
've got an opening."

"Conference room. I
'll be right there."

I found Buzz and Dodd lounging in chairs when I got there. I caught them up to speed quickly
, since they'd only gotten a brief text from Cormac. He walked in just as I finished.

He sat down and didn
't say anything right away. Finally, he leaned back and rubbed the dark shadow on his jaw. "We're missing something." He shook his head. "I think it's a trap."

"It doesn
't matter. It's our only shot. The space holes have to be closed and we need him taken out first," I countered.

"Why? Can
't we try to close them and then worry about the senator?" Buzz asked, unsure after Cormac shared his opinion.

"No," I replied. "I
'm afraid to, especially after the smaller one. When that closed, I could feel the fabric of our existence thinning. If we close them all and he creates another tear afterward, I'm afraid it would be of a magnitude we could never heal."

"But the defectors aren
't operating anymore."

"That we know of,
" Dodd added.

"Until we are positive we
've got every other Keeper and the senator shut down, we don't attempt to close anything else," I said.

"There
's something we aren't seeing," Cormac repeated.

"What do you guys want to do?" I asked Buzz and Dodd.

"We might not get another shot," Dodd said. "We just cover all the angles."

"I
'm with Dodd and Jo. I think we go for it," Buzz said.

"Fine, it
's your call," Cormac said looking at me. "We all sink or swim with your decision."

The senator had chosen the downtown mall outside the Golden Nugget underneath the neon lights to make his speech. I was shocked by the amount of people that had come out to see him, just to hear someone say everything would be okay. Countless monsters over many generations had come to power in this exact same way, but not this time, not this monster. Even if I didn't kill him, this would be the end of his career.

Cormac, Buzz and Dodd all had sniper
s aiming at the place he would take the stage. Even Dark was getting in the action and he posed as a blind man, perusing the perimeter for the unexpected, with Abby playing guide dog. I was playing decoy in the front row. Cormac hadn't liked the idea but it wouldn't have worked with anyone else. 

When the
senator stepped up, waving at a cheering crowd, he saw me and almost tripped; I knew it worked. He was completely disoriented and his eyes kept coming back to land on me.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I know that these are scary times and I promise to get the answers your government is withholding from you…" the
senator opened to cheers from the crowd.

What a bunch of bullshit.

I looked at my watch. At exactly fifteen minutes in, they were going to simultaneously open fire. I'd agreed to this, but it wasn't my plan. They'd never have agreed to mine if I had told them. Cormac was right, I really did need practice at working as a team. I eyed the Secret Service, who were more relaxed now that everything seemed to be moving along smoothly, and I made my move.

I pulled out a
Colt gun, jumped onto the stage and had the senator in a strangle hold with my gun against his temple in under ten seconds. The senator froze, bent over awkwardly since he was quite a bit taller than I. The Secret Service moved to rush me but stopped as bullets rained down around me and held them back, exactly as I hoped they would.

"This man is not who he appears to be," I screamed out into the crowd, as I waited for the
senator to evaporate. Maybe he couldn't? Maybe when I touched him I interfered with his mojo somehow? Is that why I sensed he was afraid of me? I might never have this chance again. I pulled the trigger of my gun, jammed against his head, and watched the spray of blood explode everywhere.

He collapsed immediately. Before I could get another shot off
, to make sure I'd killed whatever he was, someone, presumably the Secret Service, slammed me to the ground, ignoring the spray of bullets now. The gun was wrenched from my hand; I sent some juice to the guy holding me down but when he rolled off me,  crying out in pain, another just simply took his place. I decided to wait this out until I could get a better idea of the numbers.

I
'd be able to get away eventually, or Cormac would figure a way to break me out when he was done being pissed off that I'd gone solo. I'd thought it all through. I'd escape, lay low for about thirty years until they'd be looking for someone in her fifties and then be able to regain a normal life. Immortality has some real perks to it.

The bullets had stopped and sirens blared in the distance as I was yanked roughly to my feet. I heard someone cry "He
's dead!" in the distance as I was walked toward the waiting cop car. I also heard the words "Murderer!" being spewed at me and all I wanted to do was smile. He was dead.

It appeared that every last cop showing up for duty had swarmed in to help escort me to the police department. I was glad that I didn
't have normal parents because this might have been a tad embarrassing for them. Me? I couldn't fit any other emotion in with the overwhelming relief that filled me.