The Fire King (37 page)

Karr arrived at the ledge, shifting as he drew near. He was almost human again when his feet touched the stone—as was Long Nu, whose draconic body morphed within a sheet of heavy golden light into a naked, wrinkled woman lying upon the stone and cradling her ribs.

Silence, all of them staring at each other. Long Nu’s expression was bitter and twisted. She looked past Karr to Serena, and then Koni, who still wore the skin of a crow, and her mouth tensed even more. “So. What now?”

Karr hesitated, glancing at Soria, who stared back. Time stretched between them—time and heartstrings, which tugged so fiercely that she found herself stepping toward him before she could stop herself.

She loved him, she realized. It was simple as that. No explosions, no thunderous applause. She loved him. A tighter, stronger, cleaner love than any she had ever felt, burning straight through her to the bone. No rhyme or reason. Just
this.
She had come searching for truth, and found it—and though it was not what she had expected, she knew that she would give her life to keep it safe.

Fierce warmth filled Karr’s eyes, as though he could read her mind. He looked down at Long Nu.
“I do not want to fight. Not anymore. There must be another way.”

Soria translated. Long Nu stared up at him, her gaze hollow and old. “If you only knew—”

A single shot rang out. The bullet slammed into the rock beside Long Nu. In one smooth movement, Karr stepped in front of the old shape-shifter just as another shot sounded. The bullet skimmed his shoulder, spinning him to his knees.

Soria spun. Althea stood on another ledge above them, a gun in her shaking hand. She was staring with horror at Karr. Soria sensed movement on her right: Ku-Ku, gun raised.

“No,”
Karr gasped, holding his hand out to the young woman.
“No!”

Soria shouted the same thing, though she didn’t give a rat’s ass whether Ku-Ku played target practice with the female chimera. She ran to Karr, falling down beside him. His shoulder was bleeding, but the injury was not terrible.

Long Nu stared at him, and reached out, tentatively. Soria did not want her touching him, and batted away the old woman’s hand. The moment she made contact, though, rough sparks buried her mind. She lost herself in memories, flashes of light and darkness.

She saw Long Nu, much younger, kissing a man with golden eyes.

Shadows shifted, revealing the tall lean figure curled around her. It was Tau, she realized with shock.
Tau.
Smiling down, but with a coldness in his eyes that Long Nu did not seem to see—or care about. It was clear that she was enthralled, and hopelessly in love.

The vision shifted again. Soria saw Long Nu holding a baby. It had just been born—or rather, Long Nu was in a bed, with a human woman at her side, and she was covered in sweat and was naked beneath her blankets. The baby was very small, but horribly disfigured, with limbs covered in scales and silver tufts of fur, its face not recognizable as human or animal, just a mash of bone and features crushed together. Long Nu was rocking her dead baby against her chest, choking out deep, guttural sobs—a terrible, aching sorrow that sank hooks into Soria’s heart and would not let go.

Tau stood in the doorway, watching. Coldness in his eyes. Smiling cruelly.

The vision collapsed again, but this time Long Nu was alone, no baby—standing over the corpses of two shape-shifters, caught between human and animal, bodies so ravaged it was impossible to know if they had been male or female. Long Nu still wept, but there was a fury in her heart that invaded Soria, a rage so deep that it burned with its own terrible life.

A scent covered those corpses. It belonged to Tau.

He had used Long Nu. Killed those closest to her. Made a baby with her that he had known would not survive. Tau had continued his war, long after it had ended. Soria could only guess at how many other lives he had destroyed through the centuries.

Soria swayed into Karr’s arms, tears racing down her cheeks. Long Nu was also weeping, but silently, anger and grief mixed hard in her eyes.

“You will not say a word,” she hissed, staring at them. “Neither of you. That is mine. What you saw is
mine.”

“Yes,”
Karr breathed, holding Soria tightly against him.
“Yes, but surely you know that you are not alone.”

Soria did not translate. She felt the dragon knew what Karr had said.

Long Nu squeezed shut her eyes, and snapped her fingers at Koni. “You, crow. Help me stand.”

Koni’s wings fluttered nervously, but moments later he stood on two feet, all arms and tattoos and long black hair. His sharp face was creased with uneasiness, but he extended his hand and helped Long Nu to her feet.

“We’re done here,” the old woman snapped at her mercenaries. “Go back to the helicopter and leave.”

The men looked at each other. Soria was certain they would disobey. But whatever their experience was with Long Nu, it held true. In a dazzling display of obedience, they turned and marched up the stone stairs. Serena watched them carefully as Eddie jogged down the steps, skirting abandoned weapons, and Evie stood as he reached them, hugging herself, trembling. He hesitated, staring at the girl.

“Please,” Soria said to Long Nu. “Let it go.”

“I want to see the children.” She stared down at the stone, her cheeks still wet with tears. “I can smell them. I want … I want to see.”

“Karr,”
Althea called out.
“You cannot.”

Karr ignored her, giving Long Nu a careful look.
“It is interesting the lengths that some will go to in order to harm that which they once loved.”
Long Nu frowned, but he stood slowly, leaning heavily on Soria.
“Honor your word, dragon. Or I will honor it for you.”

She gave him a hateful, weary look. “My honor is my life. I promise I will not harm them.”

Karr’s jaw tightened. Soria knew how much this was costing him. What plagued his nightmares.

Althea was still protesting when the small group entered the caves. Karr gave her a look—just one—and she closed her mouth with a snap. Grief and weariness, and fear, filled her eyes, but she turned and led them into narrow darkness. Evie stayed behind, Eddie with her, his one hand tentatively reaching toward her. His soulful brown eyes were full of the compassion that Soria remembered so well. Evie would be safe with him. And where they were going was not something the girl needed to see. She had been exposed to too much already.

“Were any of the monks hurt?” Soria asked Althea.

“Just frightened.” The chimera’s golden eyes glimmered. “Their order has kept our secret for hundreds of years. This was a sanctuary for our kind. But not, I think, anymore.”

Two more chimeras waited ahead of them, bearing old rusty swords. When they saw the three shape-shifters, their snarls rent the air.

Hate,
Soria thought.
So much hate.

Karr held up his hand.
“No more. If you ever trusted me, do so now. No more. Let us through.”

“Do it,”
Althea said, when they did not move.
“Fate has brought us here.”

The chimera wanted to fight, that was clear. Soria could not tell what their ancestors had been, except they were covered in fur and feathers and scales. Long Nu and Serena ignored the chimeras’ disgust, but Koni could not stop studying them as he passed; there was confusion and dismay in his gaze.

Soria heard snuffling sounds the moment they entered the chamber. Long Nu stopped, frozen. Serena did as well, staring into the darkness. Several pairs of golden eyes gleamed, and Karr tensed beneath Soria’s hand. She could see little of them but their eyes, but there was enough light to glimpse fur and human skin, and round little bodies huddled together on blankets.

“Oh, my God,” Koni breathed, his voice stricken. “Were you coming here to kill them?”

Long Nu closed her eyes, swaying. Serena grabbed the older woman’s arm. “We do not murder children.”

“Once we did,” replied the dragon, pressing her hands to her belly. “Thousands of years ago. There were prophecies. Prophecies that foretold that the chimera, our half-breed children, would destroy us all. There were already those who saw them as aberrations. They struck first.”

“But in doing so, they caused the war,” Karr said hoarsely.

“And it was a war that destroyed
us,”
Long Nu agreed. “The chimera ruined us as we ruined them. Murdered entire families, children, enslaved human women to make more of their kind. They could not be stopped.” She gave him a hard look. “Their warriors had become immortal.”

Karr exhaled slowly, and Soria clutched his arm as tightly as she could. Holding him steady, giving him strength.

“I remember,” Althea whispered brokenly. “The memories are always with us. Karr had led us to believe in mercy, but once he—you—were gone, Tau changed everything. And we followed. We followed, because we wanted revenge; and to taste our success and see the shifters bleed and run while we stood unharmed was … intoxicating. And then it stopped feeling right. It became uglier than we could conceive.”

“And by killing us, you killed yourselves,” Serena said quietly. “For there are no chimeras without shape-shifters. You can breed with humans, but the children are diluted. Without your true power.”

“Without our power, but stable and whole,” Althea replied. “But no. They are not us.”

Karr studied the chimera. “You left Tau?”

“After a hundred years, yes. By then, the damage was done. We scattered across the world. We lived with our shame. Some of us tried to make amends. And now you are here, to remind us of our sins.”

“All our sins,” Long Nu murmured. “I wanted you dead for that. You are proof of past crimes. You are truth.” She fixed Althea with an icy stare. “And I wanted the rest of you … The moment I heard that a shape-shifter had been found alive in an ancient tomb, one who could take on both fur and scales, I knew he was one of you. I thought it might lead me to Tau. But if not, I was certain the chimera would take me to where you all were hiding. So I could end it. And
him.
”

“And now?” Soria asked.

“It is ended,” Long Nu said, and left the chamber.

Althea insisted that they find Tau’s remains. Evie stayed with the monks, no longer looking quite as frightened. Just thoughtful. Which was almost as worrisome. Soria suggested that Eddie remain with her. He did not protest, except to pull her aside.

“I came for you,” he said, with a gentle shyness that was undercut with determination. “I didn’t tell Roland. I saw the e-mail you sent him and just walked out.”

Hacker,
she thought, wondering how he had managed to get here so quickly. Remembering, too, how he had curled on the floor of a fireproof cage, frightened of losing control. Scared to step outside among normal people. She could only imagine what it had cost him to do this. Or what the risk might be.

Soria flung her arm around his neck, and found him warm—warmer than any human had a right to be. “Thank you.”

“We’re your friends,” he whispered against her hair. “All of us at the agency. We missed you. I didn’t want you to be alone again. I had to try.”

Soria dragged in a deep breath and nodded. “Eddie …”

“I know what Roland did to you,” he said, his eyes very old despite his youthful face. “Back then, a year ago. I know how much it hurt you. I didn’t want to be like him. Too afraid to help the people you care about because you don’t trust yourself not to hurt them. I think … that’s another kind of death.”

Soria was going to cry if she didn’t get away from him. She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Right. Go and live, then. Go on and enjoy that girl’s company. I saw how you looked at her. And you can do damage control while you’re at it. She’s nice and smart. I think you’ll do fine.”

Eddie blushed. Soria turned and found Karr watching her with weary compassion. He said nothing, though. Merely held out his hand.

Everything stopped inside her. All the pain, all the loneliness and grief of the past year, rising for one suffocating moment—right before it was swept away in a rush of profound, tender warmth. Soria stared at Karr, unable to move, too stirred with wonder to do more than breathe him in.

He limped to her. The bullet had skimmed his shoulder, taking a chunk of flesh. Soria did not want to think about how much pain he was in.

“Your eyes,” he said quietly. “The way you look at me.”

“Because I love you,” she said, meaning those words with a ferocity she had never felt for any other, gritting her teeth as tears burned her eyes.

Karr said nothing, but there were words in his silence, in the way his thumb brushed against her mouth with gentleness and awe. She leaned forward as his hand slid around the back of her neck, warm and strong, until she was buried against his chest, engulfed within the strength of his arms.

“For you,” he murmured. “For you I would suffer another three thousand years, just for this.”

They flew down. Long Nu insisted on joining them, and was carried by Althea—a leap of faith that Soria would not have taken. Serena said she would find her own way to the base of the cliff, while Koni soared in ever-descending circles through the late evening air.

Soria received a shock when they landed. Robert was there, sitting up, looking slightly scuffed but very much alive. He was drinking a bottle of water. Ku-Ku sat beside him, painting her nails with a machine gun tucked under her skinny legs. The blue duffel bag sat beside her on the ground. She looked up briefly when they arrived, but shape-shifters flying through the sky were clearly not as interesting as pink polish.

“You need to do something about that,” Robert said, pointing to a very decapitated body that was sprawled less than twenty feet away. “Burning him and scattering the ashes might work. Or”—Ku-Ku stopped painting her nails long enough to kick over the duffel bag—“you could try stabbing him with the sword used to kill you. Hard to say what will work. Magic is fickle.”

“I suppose you would know,” Soria said, suddenly too weary to do more than throw in the towel of disbelief and simply accept that her life had room for one more oddity.