Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy 5)

“How did Felix feel about the thing in the swamp?” I asked.

“It bothered him. An environmentalist snuck on-site, a kid, barely sixteen years old. It dragged her into the water, and Felix raised a damn island to keep her alive. Saved her, sent her home, but it kept him from sleeping at night. He worried. When the surveyor disappeared, he wanted to shut everything down.”

“Did you agree?” I asked. I already knew the answer.

Marat laughed, a cold, bitter sound. “He called an emergency meeting on Thursday, the day before he died. We put it to a vote. Four against one. I knew exactly what was going on and I voted against him. If I had opened my stupid mouth and convinced them to listen to him, he might be alive today. They might have still outvoted us, but at least I would have tried.”

Now the anger made sense. Marat was eaten up by guilt. He felt trapped. They had abandoned him to the Pit, where he’d sunk all of his money, and he couldn’t get out. And now the only person who understood and worked with him was dead and he had done nothing to prevent it.

“We had a fight the day before he died.” Marat grimaced. “After we voted against him, he’d said that if we wouldn’t see reason, he’d find someone who would. When we came back here, I had argued with him over it. I told him that if the city shut us down because he did something stupid, my House would go bankrupt and he’d be taking food out of my family’s mouths.”

“I know you didn’t kill Felix.” I leaned forward. “Who do you think did?”

Marat spread his arms. “Hell if I know. Could be any of them. Jiang doesn’t say anything, and if you ask him a direct question, he’ll talk for five minutes about how House Jiang is a respected and responsible House. With responsibilities. And respect. Because our Houses are apparently garbage. By the time he’s done talking, you’ve forgotten what you’ve asked him in the first place. All Cheryl ever cares about is her charity crap. I don’t know if she’s applying for sainthood or what, but she wants the accolades. I can tell you, it costs a lot of money to be that cherished. Not that she needs the goodwill as much as Tatyana does. That snot-nosed punk brother of hers gave her family a black eye and she’s desperate to heal it. At least my solution was environmentally responsible. Her solution is to burn it all down. Maybe she can make a bonfire out of the mountain of lawsuits we’ll be hit with to keep herself warm at night.”

Okay then.

Marat slumped in his chair. “There. That’s what I think of everyone. Are we done now?”

“You’re not going to win this fight,” I told him. He would like this part even less than Alessandro’s knife, but I had to explain it to him, because his people’s safety depended on it. “While you were wrestling with tentacles, I was attacked by a telekinetic.”

“Not me.”

“I know. I jumped into the water and struck his mind. The thing in the Pit felt my magic and came in for a closer look. I felt it. The reason you haven’t made progress is because it’s not in the Pit. It is the Pit. It’s a vast enormous consciousness. A single entity that stretches to the farthest reaches of the mire. It’s malicious and telepathic. You need to get shielders.”

“There is no money. Who’s going to pay for that?”

“I will.” Alessandro pushed away from the door. “I’ll talk to Lander. Find some telepaths, and don’t be cheap or you’ll have no workers left.”

“It won’t make a difference,” Marat said, defeated.

Despair rolled off of him. At the core of it, Marat wasn’t a bad man. He was unpleasant, but he cared about his family and about his workers. Felix’s death crushed him. He was already wading through a lake of guilt and that had pulled him all the way under.

“Felix did reach out for help,” I told him. “I am that help.”

He gave me a weary look. “What are you going to do about it?”

I raised my arm and pushed. The trickle of magic slid into the star within a circle under my skin, projecting it into the air. Marat’s eyes went wide.

“The National Assembly appreciates your assistance in this matter, Prime Kazarian. Your cooperation has been noted. You will not speak of this conversation to anyone. You will not reveal my true affiliation. If called upon, you will assist me in any way possible.”

He nodded, mute.

I faded the star and rose. “It will be okay,” I told him. “There is a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Ten minutes after we left the main island, Alessandro stopped the car and leaned over to me. “Hospital.”

“You don’t have to menace me.”

“Yes, I do. I’m taking you to a hospital. That was our agreement. Pick one.”

I gave him the address of Rogan’s private physician. He plugged it into his phone, and we were off.

I stared out of the window at the Pit.

“Does it hurt?” he asked after a while.

“A little.” The painkiller was wearing off. The four wounds in my side burned like someone was hammering red-hot nails into me.

“We’ll get there soon.” He reached over and squeezed my hand.

“I don’t like threatening people to get what I need.” And I shouldn’t have said that. We weren’t in a position to have a heart-to-heart and I had no business looking for support in him.

“Marat is . . . un mulo . . . a mule. He’s strong and stubborn. He won’t listen to reason, but he understands consequences and authority. He didn’t recognize yours because you’re younger and female and he didn’t recognize mine because I’m young and spoiled Eurotrash.”

“Well, that shirt was a bit much. I kept waiting for you to strategically unbutton it to display your chest.”

He looked at me. “Are you interested in my chest?”

“No.” Why did I even open my mouth?

“I can take my shirt off for you, if you’d like.”

“No.”

“I had no idea the presence of my shirt has been bothering you all this time.”

“Alessandro!”

He laughed. Then his smile died. “Is showing Marat the badge going to carry consequences for you?”

“No. Linus allows me to reveal who I am when it’s absolutely necessary. It was necessary. That’s the only way to keep Marat quiet.”

“I don’t think that was it. I think you did it to reassure him, because you felt sorry for him.”

“Think whatever you want.”

“Arkan has a pet telekinetic,” Alessandro said.

I reached over and rested my fingers on his forehead. “Strange. No fever.”

“Why would I have a fever?”

“Because you just shared information without prompting.”

I took my hand off and he leaned slightly, as if he wanted to prolong the touch, but caught himself.

“I jumped into the nasty water for you and you still don’t trust me. I probably do have a fever from that. You don’t even know what’s in that water . . .”

“If you have a fever, Dr. Daniela will take care of it.”

“I don’t think Dr. Daniela can do anything for my kind of fever.”

Yeah, right. “Tell me about Arkan’s telekinetic.”

“Young, very powerful. Arkan is grooming him as his protégé.” Alessandro frowned.

“How powerful?”

“He lifted a semi once and threw it.”

“Threw it where?”

“At me.”

Don’t ask. Don’t ask how or where. Don’t tempt yourself to care. “Did you dodge it?”

“I did.”

“Good.” I nodded and looked out the window.

Dr. Daniela Arias ran a state-of-the-art private clinic located in a bunkerlike building that was guarded better than Fort Knox. She was none too pleased with the condition of my wounds.

“So, you got clawed by an arcane construct, then you ran around the Pit, and for an encore you jumped into the filthy, magically tainted water that’s probably full of sewage?”

“Exactly,” Alessandro volunteered.

Dr. Arias turned to him. She was six feet tall, built like an Amazon, and when she scowled at you, you wanted to become very small and squeak “yes, ma’am” to anything she said. The stare she leveled at Alessandro was withering.

“And you didn’t stop her why?”

“Yes, why didn’t you stop me?” I demanded.

Alessandro gave us a dazzling smile. It bounced off Dr. Arias like a laser beam from a mirror.

“I did try to stop you. I jumped into the water instead of you to keep you from drowning and being eaten. How was I supposed to know you would follow me?”

“You’re expected to use common sense.” Dr. Arias glared at the two of us. “The two of you are old enough to know better. I need to run some tests and fix this mess. Catalina, make whatever calls you need to make before I start, and you, whoever you are, occupy yourself with something. She’ll be here for a couple of hours.”

I texted Arabella. Are you there?

Is you dead?

No. Need clothes.

Did you have sexy times with Alessandro?

No, I fell into the Pit. Don’t tell Mom. Don’t tell Nevada either. I need clothes to see Cheryl Castellano.