Seth stared down into Lazar's face. His lips were blue. His eyes glittered, still sharp, still conscious. Lazar's lips twitched, but Seth couldn’t hear him. He leaned closer. “What?” he snarled.
“You were supposed to protect her,” Victor exhaled.
A harsh laugh burst out of him. “I tried. She's hard to protect.”
“Try harder,” Victor said “Idiot.” He coughed. Blood bubbled from his lips.
“Don't, please, Victor.” Raine's voice was shaking. “Try not to move. “Well get help, and—”
“Shhh, Katya. Mackey ...” Victor's eyes beckoned him.
He didn't understand why he should bother listening to the dying words of one of Jesse's murderers. But the man had taken a bullet for Raine. He leaned forward again.
“Strength is worthless if you have nothing to protect with it.” Victor's voice was a wispy thread of sound.
Seth stared into the dying man's eyes and saw in them all the bleak, empty cold that was waiting for him. He recoiled, enraged at the sheer, flicking nerve of the man.
“Pearls of wisdom from a murderer. Thanks, Lazar. I'll have that printed up on my letterhead. Better yet, I'll have it inscribed on your tombstone. You know what? This is a better death than you deserve.”
He just managed to catch the faint, amused smile on Lazar's lips before Raine shoved him away. “Get away from him,” she hissed.
He watched her bend over the dying man, murmuring something. Long, tangled locks of her pale hair straggled through his blood. She cried without making a sound, tears streaking through the blood and grime smeared on her face.
Lazar's eyes grew glassy and fixed.
Novak lay facedown, twisted and sprawled across the floor like a pile of discarded, bloodstained clothing.
Seth felt neither triumph, nor satisfaction, nor peace.
He felt nothing at all. Raine stared into Victor's face, using the old eye spell. If she didn't blink, he couldn't slip away from her. She'd only just found him.
But she was crying too hard. She couldn't help but blink. He was slipping away anyway, and no child's spell could hold him. She touched his face, a timid caress that left a smear of his own blood across his high, sharp cheekbone. “I guessed your password,” she whispered. “That was how I found you.”
“Clever girl.” She could barely hear him. “You didn't guess the password. You
“I'm sorry I couldn't give you what you want.”
She saw the barest twitch of the corners of his mouth. “Yes, you did. Peter can forgive me now. If you can.” His eyes bored into hers.
She gazed back, and nodded. “I can,” she said simply.
There were no more secrets or lies between them, just the stately finality of dying, tike a boat drifting out into a vast emptiness.
It was like her dreams, and yet different This time, when the boat drifted away, she didn't panic or blubber or beg to be taken along.
She just held Victor's limp body in her arms, let the tears flow, and quietly watched it go.
Seth was crashing. No way to halt the downward trajectory. Lights flashing, people talking in loud voices, faceless uniforms asking him questions on which he couldn't focus enough to answer. The McClouds were dealing with it, and he was numbly grateful to them.
At some point, he realized that Novak wasn't dead. Close to it, from the looks of him, but medics were sticking tubes into him. They wouldn't bother to do so if he were a corpse.
Great. He'd failed at that, too. Jesse was still not avenged.
But the part of him that cared was buried under a hundred tons of broken rock. He sat on the bloodstained floor and watched Raine cry. There was a yawning expanse between them. Huge and echoing and endless. She was still crying as they zipped Victor into a black body bag, and he couldn't figure out why. The guy was an icy-hearted murderer who had put out a contract on her father and ruined her life. It baffled him so much he had to stumble closer and ask her. “Why?”
She scrubbed at her wet eyes with grimy hands. “Why what?”
“Why are you crying for the man who killed your father?”
The medic was fussing at her, but Raine ignored him. The two of them were utterly elsewhere, locked in a glass bell of frigid silence. Her wet eyes glittered at him with an unearthly silver brilliance.
“He did not kill my father,” she said. “He
She reached inside his jacket, rummaging around. He stared down, numb and unresisting. Whatever. She could shoot him or stab him if she pleased. He didn't have the energy to knock her hand away.
Her grubby hand emerged, clutching the glittering opal pendant. “I'll keep this,” she said “As a memento of my father.”
He stared down at the blue-green fire that flashed beneath the milky surface of the stone. “That was how they found us,” he said.
She nodded and stuffed the necklace into her pocket. “I didn't plant it on purpose. And I followed you because I wanted to warn you. Of course you'll never believe me. Really, I don't know why I bother.”
He shook his head. “Raine—”
“Believe what you want. I no longer care what you think,” she said. “You're a cold, vicious bastard, but I'm glad you're not dead. I wouldn't want that on my conscience, along with everything else.”
The medic draped a blanket around her shoulders and led her away. She didn't look back at him. They must have given her a shot of something really strong, because everything floated away, leaving her all alone in the white mist. Once she thought she saw Seth, but that had to be a dream, because Victor and Peter were standing on either side of him. She reached out, but her hand fell short and flopped down onto the sheet, limp and useless. “Are we both dead then?” she asked him.
“No,” he answered. His eyes looked hollow and sad.
She tried to capture him with the eye spell, as always, but her eyes wouldn't stay open, and it was she who was floating away, not him. She lunged for him, trying to lasso him with words. “I love you. Don't die.”
“I won't,” he said. She drifted back out into the white mist, clutching that promise like a life raft.
The next time she woke, she knew she wasn't dead, because her mother was sitting by the bed. Her expression was that of a cat lying in wait outside a mousehole. Nothing was more earthly and concrete than Alix when she had that look on her face.
“It's about time you woke up, Lorraine. You scared me half to death. You look terrible. Black eyes, scrapes, cuts, sprains, cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, torn cartilage. You are a mess. You just had to run out and do every single thing I've been telling you not to do your whole life! Contrary. Just like your father.”
“Which one?” she whispered.
Raine drifted away before she could enjoy Alix's shocked expression.
Chapter 28
He ran the clip back, and played it again. It was from the Colbit that overlooked the floating dock at Stone Island. He'd sneaked out and collected this batch last night. Ninety-six hours of footage. He'd spliced all the pieces with Raine in them into a montage. This six-minute clip was his favorite bit.
She emerged from the trees and walked slowly down onto the dock. The bruises on her face were almost gone. Her hair flowed long and loose around her body. She was wearing a soft, clingy white shirt. No bra, he noticed. Her nipples jutted out. She needed a jacket. It bothered him that she didn't think to put one on. She never took care of herself. If he were with her, he would insist on a jacket.
