Rapture's Edge

29 A Hollow Platitude

D wasn’t surprised to see the look of stunned horror on Eliana’s face when he drove into the tree-lined gravel drive of the abandoned abbey. He wasn’t surprised the pulse had led him here. He’d long ago learned to trust his instincts, and the instinct had led him directly to this shadowed, abandoned place near the Sacre-Coeur as certainly as a homing beacon or the rays of a lighthouse cutting through fog.

What he was surprised about was Melliane. A bloody, unconscious Melliane, cradled limp in the arms of the Castratus.

He slammed the Range Rover into park and jumped out. “What happened?” he barked, staring hard at the Castratus. Fabi—he remembered past his shock. The man’s name was Fabi.

It quickly became apparent Fabi remembered him, too.

He snarled, “One more step, King Slayer, and your head will be auditioning for a spot on a new body!”

Fabi glared at him with open hostility. He was big and solid, and D thought he’d give him a run for his money if he tried to get to Eliana, who Fabi had edged in front of in a display of protectiveness that had D clenching both his fists and jaw. The midwife Bettina, beside him, was even more openly antagonistic. She hissed a warning through her teeth the minute he stepped from the car and hadn’t let up since.

“I didn’t kill Dominus,” he said flatly, looking only at Bettina and Fabi. Eliana, he saw from his peripheral vision, was trying to decide what to do. She was fingering something under her long coat that he suspected was a sheathed sword. He put up his hands in a show of surrender and lowered his voice, letting the tension ease out of his stance. “I’m no danger to any of you, but I can help Melliane—”

“You won’t touch her!” Bettina stepped forward, hands curled into fists, hissing like a snake. “And if you think for one second we believe anything you have to say—”

“It’s not me that’s been lying to you—”

“So says the King Slayer, a man of his word, no doubt!”

“Now is not the time to argue about this—”

“Go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under—”

“Bettina—”

“Don’t you dare speak my name!”

D was beginning to lose his patience. He watched a rivulet of blood roll down Melliane’s bare arm, gather at the tip of one finger, and then fall and land with a soft plash to the gravel at Fabi’s feet. “I’m not here to hurt you—”

“No, you’re just here to kill us!”

D shouted, “If I wanted you dead you’d already be dead, woman!”

Bettina’s jaw closed with a snap. Eliana stepped forward, put a hand on her arm, and stared at D with a strange look, dark and unfathomable.

“He’s right, Bettina, Fabi. If he wanted us dead, we already would be.”

Bettina shoved back a stray tendril of gray hair that had escaped from her bun and wrapped her arms around herself, glaring murderously at him. “Why are you here then, if not to kill us? What do you want?”

Instantly, D’s eyes cut to Eliana.

She stared back at him with that odd look, one hand flexed open at her side, the other wrapped around the hilt of the sword she’d been fingering moments before. It pierced him, seeing the defensiveness in her stance, that hand on her weapon. It cut him to the bone. Their eyes held, and though her face did not change, he thought he sensed a great tumult inside of her, a silent battle she waged against herself.

“Fabi,” Eliana said finally, very soft, her gaze level with his, “put Mel in the back of the car.”

Bettina gasped and Fabi took a step back. Still soft, still watching him, Eliana said, “He knows how to remove bullets, I can vouch for that. Mel trusts him. And we can’t take her to a hospital. So he’s our only option.”

She sounded as if she wished she had another option—any other option—and the knife in D’s heart sliced deeper. Mel trusts him.

Not her. She didn’t trust him. She wouldn’t defend him against their accusations.

Why should she? he reminded himself. She didn’t know the truth because he hadn’t told her the truth. He couldn’t tell her, because he swore a Blood oath to defend his brother Constantine to the death, which—very, very unfortunately—included tragic misconceptions, present circumstances included.

Like truth, honor is only a hollow platitude if it can be discarded when personally inconvenient.

Or soul-killing, heartbreaking, I’d-rather-die-than-have-to-do-this hard.

“Put her in the back of the car, Fabi,” Eliana said again, still with that terrible softness, that eerie look on her face. She said it again, sharper, when Fabi didn’t move, and the big male finally drew in a breath and relented. He stepped forward, bristling, the cords in his neck standing out, his eyes flinty cold.

“I swear on Amun-Ra, Ma’at, and Sekhmet, if any harm comes to her while under your protection, I will dedicate my life to killing you. I will hunt you down like a dog, and you will die like one, too, with my sword buried in your gut and your lying tongue torn out and flung to the buzzards. Your name will be cursed for a thousand generations, and your soul will writhe on the end of Osiris’s spear for all eternity.”

He spit on the ground to seal the curse and then turned his black glare back to D, whose brows had risen.

To hide his anger and gripping indignation at the sheer crookedness of the entire situation, D lightly said, “Very elaborate, Fabi. Well done.” He gave a short, mocking bow and then rose and pursed his lips. “Do they even have buzzards in France?”

Fabi growled, and Eliana pushed past him to open the rear door of the SUV. She jerked her head—inside, now—and Fabi gently laid Mel on the backseat, murmuring to her when she moaned as he adjusted her legs.

When it was done Eliana turned and gave Fabi and Bettina swift, hard hugs. “Gather the rest, as many as will come, and take them to the Tabernacle,” she murmured. “I’m going to send Alexi for you. You can trust him. Follow him and wait for me.” Her gaze flickered to D. “You’ll get word from me within a few hours. If for any reason you don’t hear from me, assume the worst. Take all precautions. Evanesco, like we planned, but find a new place. Someplace Silas—or anyone else—won’t think to look.”

Evanesco. Vanish. D stood there, his heart like a stone in his chest, listening while his beloved gave instructions on what to do in case she disappeared, never to return.

In case he disappeared her.

Sick. He felt sick. He felt like breaking something. He felt like dying.

They murmured together for a few more minutes, plans and assurances and parting instructions. Then with a final glare from Fabi and a teeth-baring snarl from Bettina, the two of them moved off the way they’d come, back toward the stone bulk of the old church, hulking and silent in the hush of early morning. Eliana watched them for a moment, worry pinching her face, and then she turned and looked at him, grim and resolute as if she were going off to face a firing squad.

“Let’s go.”

Then she opened the passenger door to the SUV and jumped inside.

Moving slowly, feeling a little shell-shocked, D got behind the wheel and shifted the car into reverse. As they backed down the gravel drive, he said through clenched teeth, “You should know by now I’m not going to hurt you, Ana.”

She stared out the window into the rising light of morning. She exhaled slowly through her nose. She muttered, “Demetrius, just looking at you hurts me.”

After that, he didn’t much feel like talking.

Alexi answered on the first ring. His “What?” was an annoyed, sleepy mumble.

“I need your help.” Eliana tried to ignore the murderous glare D shot at her from the driver’s seat.