Master of None (35 page)

Trevor-Lenka moved back to the stairs and blocked them.
“Visible or not, this is the only way out. I know you’re still here, and I will find you.” He pulled out a gun. “You may as well show yourself,” he called out. “You’ve lost, General. You are an army of one. Prince of nothing.”

Ian practically vibrated. I squeezed his arm hard, attempting to stop him from doing whatever stupid thing he had in mind. And I reached for my own gun. Maybe I’d have to shoot the bastard after all.

“Show yourself, and I will let Akila live.”

A sinking feeling lodged in my gut just before Ian lunged from my grasp. I clamped my mouth shut against a protesting shout. One of us had to leave this place alive. Ian knew that—and he’d decided it would be me.

Damn him.

He walked out in clear view. “Lenka, you are the worst of cowards. Hiding behind a human. I’ve shown myself. Why do you not face me on your own?”

I read his intentions instantly: distract Lenka’s control, and I might be able to take out Trevor, or at least get the tether from him. Unfortunately, Lenka read them, too.

“In good time, Gahiji-an,” he said. “You will see me before you die. But after four centuries of the chase, I intend to savor this capture.”

“That will be your mistake.” Ian kept his gaze on the figure blocking the stairs. “Why delay victory any longer? Destroy me, and claim your prize.”

“No, Gahiji-an. You will suffer first. And you know full well I require your tether. Of course, you would not have brought it here—or would you?” The cold smile widened. “We shall find out.”

The gun came up. Trevor took aim and fired.

The bullet ripped through Ian’s thigh. He dropped to his knees. Trevor fired twice more, putting one in his shoulder, another straight to the gut. Ian collapsed with a groan.

I finally got a grip on the modified rifle. My hands shook so hard I half expected bullets to start rattling in the chamber and give my position away. Despite my conviction that I could make an exception for Trevor, I still wasn’t sure I’d be able to go through with killing a human being—even if he only fit that term loosely. Guess I’d find out. I tried to aim for his torso. Bigger target, better chance at actually hitting the bastard. My finger rested on the trigger.

Then Trevor reached down and hauled Ian up with one arm. Might as well’ve been a brick wall between us. Even if I was a good shot, I couldn’t have hit him.

“You have nothing left. Do you? No power at all.” Trevor shook him. “You can’t be as foolish as you seem. Why did you come here? What are you hiding?”

When Ian didn’t answer, Trevor drove a fist into the gut wound. Ian’s body went slack, but Trevor held him up.

I took a few careful steps to one side, looking for an opening to plug him.
Come on, damn it. Move.
But Trevor didn’t seem inclined to go anywhere. I half suspected he knew I was here.

“You broke the seal. You must have known it would drain you. How did you plan to leave, with a weak cripple and no power of your own?”

Ian slowly raised his head. And spit at him. I damn near cheered aloud.

Trevor ignored the blood-flecked saliva sprinkling his face. “You will answer me. As I said, I have waited four centuries for this. I can be patient longer. Hours, perhaps even days.”

Nothing. Ian didn’t even blink.

I managed another few cautious steps. Couldn’t afford to miss with the first shot, because I wouldn’t get a second chance. I almost had a clear line when Trevor snarled and dragged Ian toward his collection of restraints. Away from me. Once again ruining my shot.

“We can do this the long way. In fact, I look forward to it.” Still clutching Ian by the vest, he tucked the gun in his waistband and grabbed a set of iron manacles. He jacked Ian’s arms behind him and cuffed them tight. “How do you prefer your pain?”

In a blink, Trevor slammed him face-first against a wall. Ian let out a breathless gasp. I drew a bead, but he jerked Ian back almost as fast as he’d bashed him. “What shall we use?” He scanned the room, and his gaze settled on the mirror. A grim smile stretched his lips. “How interesting. Your finger barely bleeds. Yet you have not healed your other wounds, and the blood on the mirror is fresh.”

My breath stopped.

“You would never have planned to leave yourself defenseless. The blood is not yours. You have taught your pet some new tricks. He is here as well.” He paused. “
Donatti
.”

I felt the personality switch when my name left his lips. Lenka must have been pushed back by the force of Trevor’s rage. “Disgusting thief! I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”

Despite my horror, I couldn’t help feeling a quick swell of pride. The bastard had just paid me the ultimate criminal compliment. I wouldn’t add him to my Christmas card list, though.

“Come out! I’m going to rip out your tongue and feed it to my dogs, you slippery little shit!” He shoved Ian to the floor and whipped the gun back out.

Finally.

I took an extra second to attempt a steady aim and pulled the trigger before I could talk myself out of it. The boom and kick of the weapon were rifle-strength, earsplitting, slamming back down my arms and damn near knocking me over. I held my ground.

Trevor didn’t. The shot took him in the side and spun him around almost completely. He hung unbalanced on one leg for a heartbeat and toppled over like a bowling pin.

Bile clogged my throat, and I had to resist a compulsion to throw the gun across the room. I’d just shot a man. No idea if I’d killed him, but he was down, and he wasn’t moving. Heart thumping my ribs, breath whistling like a kettle, I kept the piece on him and crept forward.

Ian coughed and stirred. He rolled onto his side with a harsh groan. “Thief . . .”

“I’ve got this. Just hold on.”

He tried to say something else, but a convulsive coughing fit overcame him. I had to get him out of here fast.

I reached Trevor and found him still alive. His half-open eyes were twitching, rolled back to whites. He breathed in shallow hitches. The blast hole torn through his shirt revealed a bloodied eruption of glistening pink flesh. Blood soaked the material and pooled on the floor. Glimpses of the snake tattoos on him almost appeared to be writhing, as if they were trying to crawl away from the wound.

After kicking his gun away from his outstretched hand, I grabbed the pendant, jerked it over his head, and stuffed it into a pocket. The other tether . . . what the hell did Tory say? Something small and round in his pocket. A ring or a coin. I knelt and thrust a hand into the pocket that wasn’t soaked with blood and came up empty. Of course. I reached into the wet pocket. Felt something solid and pulled it out. It was a coin, about the size of a half-dollar, gleaming silver under crimson streaks, embossed with worn markings that were probably djinn writing.

Trevor hissed a rattling breath. His entire body jerked. Maybe he was dying. I folded the coin in my hand and started to stand, and Trevor’s hand flew up and made a grab for me.

“Jesus!” I stumbled back. His eyes were still trying to stare at his brain. He didn’t move again. Might’ve been some kind of bizarre nerve reaction, since he couldn’t see me. I was still invisible.

Ian let out a moan. At least he’d stopped coughing. He tried to get up.

“Don’t,” I told him. “We’re leaving in a minute.”

He made a garbled sound. If there were any words in it, I didn’t catch them.

I crouched near Ian. If I could manage to destroy Lenka’s tether, everything stopped. Still holding the gun, I reopened the cut on my finger with my teeth and smeared blood on the face of the coin. Easier than opening a bridge, I reminded myself. Just the blood and the words. And every bit of strength I had left.

Trevor screamed and jolted up to a seated position, as if someone had tied a rope around his neck and pulled. Pink-tinged foam bubbled from his lips. His arms jerked and flapped like a kid playing airplane, and his head lolled forward bonelessly.

He was half-dead, and Lenka was still moving him around. I had to finish this now.

Focus.
The familiar electric sensation balled in my chest and built to a rapid crescendo of pain. I tuned out the horror show that was Trevor and Ian’s now-breathless attempts to speak. Nothing but me and the coin. Seconds away from ending this nightmare.

Another chilling scream left Trevor’s mouth. He fell over and flopped a few times. Then he raised an arm and slapped his own face. His eyes flew open, and one hand jerked and twitched toward the inside of his jacket.

The grotesque display robbed most of my focus, and gathering the threads again took precious seconds. Ian gasped something that I failed to understand. Some distant part of my mind realized it was probably important, but I couldn’t stop now. Words. I had to say them.

I opened my mouth to speak—and realized I wasn’t invisible any more.

At once, Trevor bolted to his knees and lunged at me with impossible speed. I brought the gun up and fired twice. At least
one shot hit him. But he still collided with me and knocked me flat.

A new pain exploded in my throat. Electric but manmade. Taser.

My muscles went on strike. I crumpled to the floor, vaguely aware of the coin clattering from my fingers outside a cocoon of agony. Something that felt like a wrecking ball rammed my stomach. The blow cleared some of my mental fog, but then the Taser went off in my side. The world blurred again.

Dimly, I heard Trevor shrieking while he juiced me over and over. I fought to stay conscious. And lost.

E
ITHER
THERE WAS AN EARTHQUAKE IN PROGRESS, OR SOME
one had surgically implanted a giant joy buzzer in my stomach.

I opened my eyes and realized that was about all I could move. It didn’t look as if I’d been out too long, though. Trevor knelt on the floor six or seven feet from me. The second shot had taken him in the thigh. His head hung limp, a broken thing. He gasped every intake of breath and cried out every exhale. The bloodied coin lay on his palm.

“Thief.” Ian’s voice behind me, raw with shock.

I wasn’t sure I could answer him. It took three tries to remember where my tongue was. “Wha’?” I slurred through a mouthful of drool.

“You are visible.”

“Noticed.” I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them, and tried to move. Anything. One finger might’ve twitched. The vibrating buzzer in my core sent out needles.

“
Ssssilence.
” The awful, grating word came from Trevor.
His head winched up with a series of popping jolts. Tendons bulged in his neck. Agony and rage blazed from his eyes. His fingers spasmed around the coin, and his arm lifted with the same jerking fits.

“
. . . no . . .
”

Despite his strengthless protest, Trevor’s hand stayed on course and shoved the coin into his mouth. He gagged immediately and tried to spit it out. His eyes widened so much that I was convinced they’d burst in their sockets. Finally, he swallowed hard and gasped for breath. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “Kill you,” he spat. “Swear . . .”

He went completely still. More spasms and twitches moved through him, puppeting his arms, stripping away his tattered shirt. The tattoos looked sunken into his flesh, as though they were squeezing him.

Immediately, one of the snakes glowed fire-red. Not just a trick of the light this time. And from Trevor’s agonized expression, whatever lit those lines didn’t tickle. His arms rose, his head fell back. Slender wisps of smoke formed along the edges of the coal-bright snake. The smell of burning flesh wafted through the room, and I suppressed a gag.

This explained the unusual qualities of Trevor’s tattoo work. No ink involved. Just fire.

I couldn’t look away from him. The glow spread to encompass the entire area between the outlines of the snake. His skin blistered and bulged until a thick, bright red tube looped around his torso, over one shoulder, under the other. Red faded to black and became glistening, close-set scales. A snake. Sliding in lazy motion across limbs and body as if Trevor was its favorite tree.

Lenka, I presumed.

The snake’s head lifted from behind Trevor’s shoulder, bobbing and weaving like an Indian cobra in a charmer’s thrall. It gave a threatening hiss and streaked down Trevor’s body to coil on the floor. White light enveloped the snake, and its shape shifted. The transformation yielded a tall figure clad in deep blue velvet robes. Pale white skin, as cold and smooth as marble save for the tattooed scale pattern on his hairless head. Eyes the color of fresh blood, with narrow slits for pupils. And serrated ivory teeth nearly as sharp as the fangs of the snake he’d been seconds before.

The instant Lenka completed his transformation, Trevor collapsed.

Ian snarled something in djinn. It was definitely not a friendly greeting. Smirking, Lenka kicked Trevor’s inert form aside and crouched in front of me. He tipped his head and stared at me as if I was an exhibit in a freak show.

“My hair on fire?” I croaked.

“You intended to destroy me. Didn’t you, thief?” Lenka flashed a ghoulish grin. “Clever. I admit, I never would have guessed that Gahiji-an would teach you this. Or that you would be able to learn. Such a smart dog. But as clever as you are, I doubt you can pick a stomach.”

“Release him, Lenka.” Ian’s voice wavered like an old man’s. “You have me.”

Vicious laughter answered him. “The dog is more intelligent than his master. No. He will stay and witness your death. Then experience his own. My pet wants this one for himself.”

I made a sound that would’ve been a laugh if my lungs worked. “Think your pet’s dead.”

“I am afraid he is not. How unlucky for you.” Lenka rose
and hovered over Trevor. He held a hand out and chanted in djinn. The gaping hole in Trevor’s side started knitting itself back together.

Great. Now that I’d shot him, he was really going to be my best friend.

He finished in less than a minute. Trevor shot to his feet, teeth bared, and grabbed my gun off the floor. He knelt and pressed the muzzle to my forehead. “I’d blow your skull apart right now, Donatti, if it wasn’t too good for you. You aren’t worth wasting one of your own bullets.”