Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy 5)

“Yes.”

“Are they dead?”

“Some of them. The telekinetic wasn’t there.”

“I can’t believe you kissed me. You’ve lost your mind.”

“You were dragged off by a monster into the river. You can’t blame me.”

Oh yes, I could.

“What did it want?” he asked.

“Me.”

“It can’t have you.”

“It’s a he.”

“What?”

“It’s a he, Alessandro. He thinks he should. He showed me images.”

A hot spike of pain shot through my right hip. My leg folded, but Alessandro caught me.

“I can carry you.”

“No!” After that kiss, being carried by him was the last thing I needed.

We trudged up the sidewalk.

“What kind of images?”

“The impress-your-date kind. He showed me his crib, demonstrated that he was a good provider, and I wouldn’t starve, and then he showed me what he did for work, and how creative he was.”

Alessandro put his hand on my forehead.

“I don’t have a fever!”

“Did you hit your head?”

“No!” We were almost to the road. “He killed a guard and used the dead man’s brain and nervous system to make a five-foot-tall replica of my dog.”

“That might be the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t a ton of fun to watch.”

We reached the bridge and walked onto the pedestrian access, separated from the traffic by a narrow barrier. Alessandro’s Spider waited just a few yards ahead.

“You should dump this on Linus.”

“That’s not how it works. He gave me the job, I’m doing the job. Besides, what is Linus going to do against a Saito construct?”

“What is that?”

“A construct that’s alive, capable of independent decisions, self-repair, and growth, physical and mental. It’s not supposed to exist, but it’s in the Pit right now preparing a lovely lily pad for me and feeding dead bodies to fish to fatten them up so he can serve them for dinner.”

Alessandro stopped. I leaned on him, resting all of my weight on his arm. It was that or kiss the pavement with my face.

“Is this what the rest of your life is going to be like, Catalina?”

“If I’m lucky.”

“I’m being serious.”

“I know you are.”

“Giuro! Mi sembra di parlare al muro.”

Uh-huh, talking to me is like talking with a wall? Okay. “Da che pulpito!”

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. I had just demanded to know from what pulpit he was delivering that sermon.

Alessandro finally recovered. “Ma sai parlare italiano?”

Duh. I answered in Italian. “Did you think you’re the only person in the world who can learn a foreign language?”

“How long?”

“For years.” I learned so I could read his Italian posts. “If you’re wondering if I understood all of your mutterings and curses, and every time you called me your treasure or your angel, I did.”

He looked like he was about to have an aneurism.

I slumped onto the Spider’s hood. I would have to fold my battered body into that tiny car. I switched back to English. “Would it kill you to have a normal-sized car?”

Alessandro opened the passenger door and all but stuffed me into the seat. He got in on the driver’s side and we were off.

He pressed a button on the steering wheel and said, “Call Leon.”

What?

“Did you think you are the only person who can call your cousin from the car?”

Leon’s voice spilled from the speakers. “Did you find her?”

“I have her. She’s okay, but I’m driving her to Dr. Arias.”

Leon swore quietly, the relief plain in his voice.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yes. Don’t come back here. Half of Houston PD is here and Sabrian is in beast mode.”

“She’s going to need a change of clothes,” Alessandro said. “She’s due at Victoria Tremaine’s in ninety minutes.”

He remembered.

“I’ll send some over with Beetle. I want her in an armored car. Keep her safe.”

“I will,” Alessandro promised.

Leon hung up.

“How did you even find me?”

“I will always find you,” he said. “I told you, Catalina. I won’t abandon you.”

He said it with complete sincerity, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He’d come for me. Even if the thing dragged me into the river, he would find it, kill it, and pull me out. If the Abyss took me into the Pit, Alessandro would follow and bring me out.

Nobody besides my family would ever do that for me.

The realization of that was too big for me to deal with. I slumped on my seat. “Just tell me.”

“I was there when you made the arrangements with the Primes, so I knew where you would be. Once Linus and I finished, I drove to House Jiang and ran into your cousin and your sister. I saw the trail leading to the river, realized that it was dragging you back to the Pit, so it would be heading northwest against the current, and drove to this bridge very fast.”

“Why do you have my sword?”

“It’s not yours. This is mine. It’s a gift from your . . . supervisor.”

I glanced at him.

“He said it was the prototype of the prototype. He thought I might need it.” Alessandro grimaced. “Aside from the null space, it’s a shit blade.”

“He usually makes ranged weapons.”

“I noticed.”

Houston slid by outside the window. Alessandro reached over and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.

Chapter 13

The Shenandoah State Correctional Facility, nicknamed the Spa, loomed ahead as I steered Beetle down the smoothly curving road. A four-story-high masonry fort built with Austin limestone, it rose above the ten-foot wall like a luxury hotel and offered an indoor pool, tennis courts, a track, a driving range, and a garden. The rich and powerful didn’t like to be inconvenienced, even in incarceration.

A heavy, irresistible dread crawled over me. I didn’t want to see my evil grandmother today. Each visit to the posh country club she called prison felt like walking into a monster’s mouth. I never knew if I would get out alive. Nobody except me truly understood the magnitude of the threat she posed, and I would keep it that way as long as possible.

By now Detective Giacone would have reported everything there was to report about Leon being framed for Audrey’s murder. She would want to know what I planned to do about it. I would have to answer for exposing her spy in the Houston PD. I needed to be sharp and alert, and instead I was exhausted and rattled, which is why I’d insisted on driving. It put some control back into my hands.

To say that Dr. Arias had been less than pleased to see me again would be a severe understatement, kind of like referring to a Category 4 tornado as a cute little dust devil. She resealed my wounds and gave me a Serious Lecture, which I mostly ignored, because I was too busy thinking.

Munoz called to confirm that I had sustained injuries that required me to leave the crime scene and was indeed at the clinic. Dr. Arias talked to him while Sabrian played referee. At the end, Sabrian got on the phone with me. The Houston PD determined that the encounter was House warfare and was letting both Leon and Arabella go.

Bern arrived with my clothes and Beetle, a Toyota Tundra Grandma Frida had snagged in some kind of complicated trade after one of her clients couldn’t pay their bill. She’d added her special touch, and Beetle was sufficiently bulletproof. Alessandro saw the giant black truck and laughed for a full minute, but he let Bern drive his Spider back to our place. Bern was slightly shocked by that development.

I kept banging my brain against the problem of the Abyss. Regina’s words glowed in my memory. You have to kill it. All of it.

I had stolen a matrix node from the Abyss. The node didn’t collapse once its tie to the Abyss was severed. It didn’t stop functioning. It still felt like the Abyss, a paler, weaker version of it.

If we came for the Abyss with all of the firepower and magic we could collectively muster, we wouldn’t win. In his place, I would cleave the matrix nodes from myself and send them in all different directions. A matrix node could be anywhere. It could be in a construct. It could be buried in the muck in some hidden corner of the Pit. It could be disguised as a plant.

Power alone wouldn’t do it. The Abyss was just too massive.

“I’m not understanding something,” Alessandro said.

“Yes?”

“If Cheryl is Arkan’s contact and the person who killed Felix, then she has access to the serum. But I don’t think she took the serum herself. It’s too risky. If the serum backfires, she could die or end up warped, which means her House is left without a leader and her children become orphans. Why take the risk? Her position is already secure as is.”

“I don’t think she took it. I think she gave it to the construct.”

“The Osiris serum only works on humans. They tried giving it to animals early on and it just killed them.”

“Yes.”

Alessandro frowned. “Have you thought about why that thing keeps pulling brains out of corpses and sticking them into the constructs it makes? Where did he learn to do that?”