Dying Is My Business

breathe. In the reflection of Philip’s mirrored sunglasses, I saw my own face turn red with asphyxiation. “Your fear and confusion make your blood smell like candy to me,” he said.

“Philip, don’t,” Bethany said.

Philip scowled. “I saw him through the wall when we were coming up on this place, Bethany. He was holding a gun on you. Give me a reason not to open him up.”

“Believe me, I’d love to see him get what’s coming to him, but we need him,” she insisted. “Someone named Underwood is after the box. Trent’s the only one who can tell us who he is and what kind of threat he poses.”

Philip seemed unconvinced, continuing to press me against the wall with his face inching closer to my neck. I glanced down and saw my boots were dangling several inches above the floor. Philip wasn’t just holding me against the wall, he was holding me up, and effortlessly. His strength was staggering.

“Philip, that’s enough,” Isaac said.

Bethany had been unsuccessful, but apparently two words from Isaac were all it took to make Philip back down. He lowered me to the floor, relaxing the pressure on my chest, but he kept a tight grip on my shirt. I coughed and gasped air into my lungs. Philip’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a grin. His canines were long and pointed, sharp enough to pierce flesh. “I guess it’s your lucky day,” he said, “but you so much as breathe wrong, I’ll tear out your throat.”

Given those sharp teeth, I had no doubt Philip could do just that if he had a mind to. I looked into his mirrored shades, wishing I could see his eyes to get a better read on him. I realized with a jolt that I could see my whole torso in the reflection, but I couldn’t see Philip’s arm holding my shirt. The front of my shirt was bunched and twisted, but there was no hand gripping it, just the knot of fabric.

“You don’t have a reflection,” I said. Apparently, I’d developed a knack for stating the obvious.

Philip grinned, showing his fangs again. “When you look this good all the time, you don’t need one. Now just stay put, or I’ll show you what kind of damage a vampire can really do.”

I figured it wouldn’t be smart to put that to the test. Across the shop, I watched Bethany approach Isaac.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she said. “You know it’s against protocol. It’s your own rule.”

“You can blame Gabrielle,” he said. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was hard enough getting her to stay at Citadel last night when she knew Thornton was in trouble, but she threatened to go to him as soon as the sun came up, with or without me. Since I couldn’t talk her out of it, I thought it would be safer if I came with her. As for Philip, well, you know what he’s like. He won’t let me out of his sight. So, the gang’s all here.”

The woman with the dreadlocks and leather jacket knelt beside Thornton. She cradled him gently in her arms, and suddenly I put two and two together. Gabrielle Duchamp was the one Thornton kept talking about. The love of his life.

Thornton had changed back to human form, but he looked worse than ever. He was wasting away, his emaciated body nearly lost in the folds of his tattered clothes. The lights on the amulet pulsed so dimly I could barely see them.

Gabrielle kissed Thornton’s face and mouth. “I’m here, baby. I’ve got you.”

His discolored, necrotic hand reached up to stroke her hair and touch her face. He winced in frustration and pulled his hand away. “I—I can’t feel you.”

“How is he?” Isaac asked, putting a hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder.

She scooped Thornton up in her arms, lifting him off the floor as though he weighed nothing at all. “There isn’t much time,” she said. “We have to get him back to Citadel.”

“Bring Thornton to the car. We’ll follow,” Isaac said. Gabrielle carried Thornton out of the shop. Isaac turned back to Bethany. “I only wish we’d found you sooner. We thought you were still at the safe house. When we got there, we found Ingrid.…” He paused a moment, then continued, “After that, I remembered that you’d used the Breath of Itzamna on Thornton. The amulet gives off a distinct arcane signature that I was able to track down.”

“I’m so sorry about Ingrid,” Bethany said. “She was an amazing woman. She died protecting us.”

“And protecting this.” Isaac crouched over the box and brushed his fingers along the lid. “The Van Lente Box. I’ve heard stories all my life, but I never thought I’d see it with my own eyes. It’s like seeing history itself.”

I blinked. The Van Lente Box? The damn thing had a name?

Isaac picked the box up by its handle. Bethany didn’t stop him. She hadn’t let me hold the box, hadn’t trusted me enough even before I pulled a gun on her, but she let Isaac take it without protest. I wondered if there was something between them, if they were more than employer and employee. The thought put a sudden, unexpected pang of jealousy in my chest.

“The sooner we get it into the vault the better,” Isaac said. He carried the box toward the doorway, and pointed at me. “Bring him.”

Philip yanked me away from the wall and pulled me forcefully toward the door.

Bethany collected Tomo and Big Joe’s guns from the floor and tucked them into her pants. “What about these two?”

“Leave them here. By the time they wake up, we’ll be long gone. But him,” Isaac nodded at me, “him I want.”

Philip kept a bone-crushing grip on my arm, guiding me out onto the sidewalk. A gleaming black juggernaut of an Escalade was parked at the curb, its windows tinted dark as ink. The rear hatch was open, and Gabrielle was laying Thornton gently on the carpeted floor of the cargo area, making sure he was as comfortable as possible.

I listened as Bethany brought Isaac up to speed on everything that happened at the safe house. Isaac confirmed that he and the others had found the shadowborn’s bodies there. They were still alive, he said, even with their heads separated from their bodies, just immobilized. He’d burned them to ashes with something he called a flaming dervish—a spell, I guessed—then scattered the ashes to the wind just to be sure.

“What I don’t understand is what the shadowborn were doing there in the first place,” he said. “They shouldn’t have been able to find the safe house. The ward was still active when we got there.”

“I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” Bethany replied. “The shadowborn were looking for the box, which means whoever sent them not only knew we had it, they knew exactly where to find us. I don’t like it, Isaac. It’s like they know our every move.”

That’s because they do, I thought. Ingrid had said we’d been betrayed, and the only ones who knew we were at the safe house were here now—Isaac, Gabrielle, and Philip. One of them had to be the traitor. One of them had sent the shadowborn to kill Bethany, Thornton, and Ingrid, and to steal the box.

But it still didn’t explain Bennett. His presence had been a personal touch. Very, very personal.

Isaac put the box in the rear cargo area with Thornton and Gabrielle, then came back around to where I was being held. Philip released me, but I’d seen how fast the vampire could move. I knew better than to try to make a break for it.

“Trent, look at me,” Isaac said.

I did, noticing for the first time that Isaac’s eyes were blue like Bethany’s, though not as bright as hers. There was a wariness that darkened them. They were the guarded eyes of a man who’d seen more terror and wonder in his years than most people did in a lifetime. Maybe two lifetimes.

“I can’t risk you knowing where we’re taking you,” Isaac said, “so I’m going to have to put you to sleep.”

I smirked. “Good luck with that. Ask Bethany, she already tried. I don’t sleep.”

Isaac’s eyes seemed to fill my field of vision, though he hadn’t moved any closer. Everything else receded, fading into a dim, murky twilight.

“I’m a mage, Trent,” Isaac said. “Do you know what that means?”

“You’re smarter than the average bear?” I said, but my words were slurred. There was nothing before me now but Isaac’s eyes. The street, the others, everything else was gone.

“It means this time you’ll sleep.”

I blinked. My eyelids felt heavy, my limbs weak and relaxed. “It won’t … work…”