TWENTY-TWO
I was an emotional wreck when I got off the phone with Cyrus. I spent a few minutes indulging in a crying jag, a little piece of my heart breaking. When the worst of it was over, I went into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on my face. My eyes were red and puffy, and I had shopping bags under them from not sleeping. The hair around my face was wet from the splashes of water, and the hair that wasn’t wet was tangled and frizzy. I wanted to get into the shower and put myself back together, but there wasn’t time.
I threw on the first pair of jeans I could get my hands on and grabbed a warm, comfortable flannel shirt. Then I dug out my one pair of waterproof boots, nice and fleecy to keep my feet warm in the snow. I braided my hair sloppily as I made my way down the stairs to the second floor. The house was dark and quiet. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was now twenty after four. I’d wasted too much time having my pity party. The moon would set in less than two hours, and I would need every spare second of that time.
Of course, it was possible I wouldn’t survive relaying to Anderson what Cyrus had told me when he called. I wished Cyrus had had the guts to tell Anderson himself without using me as his messenger service. After all, Anderson couldn’t kill the messenger over the phone.
I hesitated when I reached the hallway leading to Anderson’s wing. We were forbidden from going into the east wing past his study, except in case of emergency. This was an emergency, but that didn’t exactly make me eager to trespass. Not with the message I bore.
I gave myself a swift kick in the pants and reminded myself once again that I didn’t have time for hesitation. I needed to be at my hunting best, and that meant I needed the moon.
Heart throbbing in my chest, I hurried down the hall. I wasn’t sure which room was his bedroom, but I made an educated guess that it would be next to the bathroom he’d stuck his head out of the other day. I didn’t know how I was going to break the news, and I didn’t have time to come up with a carefully worded plan.
I knocked on the door, rapping hard because I assumed Anderson would be fast asleep. “Anderson!” I called, hoping I wasn’t shouting so loud I’d wake the entire house. “Wake up! I need to talk to you.”
“I’m not asleep,” he answered, startling me, and moments later there was a glow of light around the edges of the door and the sound of approaching footsteps.
The door swung open. Anderson was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and a quick glance over his shoulder showed me that his bed was neatly made. I didn’t know what he’d been doing sitting around in his room in the dark, but I didn’t wonder enough to ask. He looked even more rumpled than usual, his beard bristling with scraggly whiskers he hadn’t bothered to shave, his shaggy hair standing up straight in places and lying flat in others. His eyes were bloodshot, and there was a faint scent of stale alcohol clinging to him. That answered my question about what he’d been doing alone and awake in the dark.
“What is it?” he asked, and he didn’t sound as alarmed as a knock on the door at this hour of the morning should make him. He just sounded resigned and very, very tired.
I wished like hell I could turn around and leave him to his grieving. I wished I didn’t have to make him feel worse than he already did. Yesterday, I had wanted him to feel bad for what I saw as his cold-bloodedness, but now I wished I could spare him.
I decided to ease my way into the conversation by telling him the easy part first.
“I just got a phone call from Cyrus.”
A crease of worry appeared between Anderson’s brows. “That was . . . unexpected.”
No kidding. “Someone tried to murder him in his sleep.”
Anderson no longer looked so weary and apathetic. I didn’t know if that would turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing for me, though I supposed even if he’d remained flat and dull-eyed, he would be fully roused and ready to embrace his Fury heritage by the time I was finished.
“Come in,” he said, turning his back abruptly and heading toward an armchair in the corner. I reluctantly followed as he sat and grabbed the pair of battered sneakers lying beside the chair. “Cyrus wouldn’t call you just to report an attempt on his life,” he said, shoving one foot into a sneaker. “Tell me what’s going on.”
I wanted to sit down. My knees were a little weak and trembly. But Anderson was sitting in the only chair, and sitting on the edge of his bed seemed too familiar and informal. I settled for grabbing one of the bedposts to steady myself, gripping it harder than was strictly necessary. Why the hell was I the one who had to have this conversation with Anderson? I swallowed hard.
“The guy who tried to kill Cyrus was a Descendant. One of Konstantin’s cronies.”
Anderson looked up from tying his sneakers. “You say that like it’s some kind of surprise. I told you Konstantin has never trusted his children. I’m frankly surprised Cyrus has lived as long as he has. It might have seemed natural to him to step into his father’s shoes, but it was probably the worst possible thing he could have done if he wanted Konstantin to keep him alive. Having his child usurp his ‘throne’ is one of his biggest fears, which is why he’s killed all the others before Cyrus.”
“But Cyrus took over in name only,” I protested. I’d warned Cyrus myself that Konstantin would turn on him one day, but I still had a hard time understanding how someone could kill their own child. I don’t think there’s a more heinous crime in the universe.
“Doesn’t matter,” Anderson said. He finished tying his shoes, but remained in his chair, his body language fraught with tension. “Maybe Konstantin thought he’d be okay with it at first, but when he saw Cyrus taking over his role—and making some decisions he didn’t agree with—he realized he couldn’t stomach it. He might even think killing Cyrus would make the rest of the Olympians forgive his past mistakes and let him lead them again.” He raked his hand through his hair. I don’t know if that was a stress reaction, or if he actually thought he was finger-combing it. If the latter, he failed spectacularly.
“You still haven’t told me why Cyrus called you of all people. And why you’re at my doorstep at this hour of the morning.”
No, I hadn’t. And I didn’t want to. My throat tightened up on me, and I couldn’t think of what to say. I didn’t like the idea of sitting on Anderson’s bed, but my shaky knees wouldn’t hold me anymore, so I did it anyway.
I told myself I wasn’t really scared of Anderson. I told myself that I was having a hard time finding my voice because I didn’t want to cause him pain, and because I was enough of an emotional coward that I didn’t want to be there to see his pain. That part was true, at least as far as it went. But the truth was, I was scared. He was a freaking god! And anyone who has even a smidgen of familiarity with mythology knows that gods don’t act like human beings. They routinely kill the people closest to them, and they only sometimes show any remorse for having done it.
Despite my pathetic attempts to put on a brave face, Anderson couldn’t help but see my fear. I thought even that might make him angry, but when I sneaked a glance at his face, I saw only gentle compassion. I just didn’t know whether to trust it or not.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Nikki,” he said in a tone he might use with a frightened animal. “I can tell you have bad news to impart, and I promise I won’t kill the messenger.”
They were the right words, delivered in the right tone, and yet I still didn’t trust him. “I’ve seen your temper before,” I said, looking at the floor because I couldn’t bear to face him. “I saw you torture a couple of people to death. I saw you stand by and watch your wife being killed before your eyes because you were angry at her for betraying you. I saw what you did to all the trees in the clearing.” I didn’t even mention the times he had threatened to kill me.
He stood up and came toward me, and I had to fight an urge to jump to my feet and run. I was rather proud of myself for staying right there on the edge of the bed until Anderson was an arm’s length away. I would have had to look up to meet his eyes, but I felt no temptation to do so.
I practically jumped out of my skin when Anderson reached out and brushed his fingers over my cheek, tucking a stray lock of hair that had escaped my messy braid back behind my ear. The touch startled me enough to make me look up at his face.
“You have seen me get angry,” he said, and there was still that look of compassion in his eyes. “You have seen me be ruthless. You haven’t seen me truly lose my temper. I learned long ago how dangerous my temper can be. I did . . . terrible things in the old days, before I started consorting with humans. I will never let that happen again. That’s why I shut down like I did the other night. It’s what I had to do to contain myself.” He touched me again, a brief caress of my cheek.
“I would never hurt you, or your loved ones, or any of my people, in a fit of anger.”
I looked down, unable to think straight when he was looking at me like that. Maybe I was imagining things, but I thought I’d seen a kind of warmth in his gaze that was almost . . . intimate. Was I really seeing something telling in his eyes? Or was I doing exactly what I’d feared I would ever since my conversation with Maggie and letting the power of suggestion make me see something that wasn’t there? I didn’t know, and I couldn’t afford to think about it.
“Tell me whatever it is you have to tell me,” Anderson prompted. “I can sense your urgency.”
I can’t say I was completely convinced. But he wasn’t wrong about the urgency, and it was time for me to stop stalling.
“Cyrus killed the Descendant who attacked him, but he didn’t do it quickly.” My gorge rose as I remembered Cyrus’s dispassionate account of using his power as a descendant of a sun god to slowly roast his attacker to death. “While he was suffering and dying, the Descendant raved about how Konstantin would win in the end. And he said Konstantin had used Cyrus to—” My voice choked off for a moment, and I forced myself to look up at Anderson once more. He’d put on his unreadable mask, and I had no idea what he was thinking or feeling.
“You might want to sit down,” I said, and despite my lingering fear, I felt an urge to reach out and take his hand to comfort him as I delivered the blow. It said something about what he was feeling behind the mask that Anderson actually took my advice and sat down on the bed beside me.
“What did Konstantin use Cyrus to do?”
I took a deep breath in a futile attempt to steady myself. No amount of willpower could force me to look Anderson in the face. “He used all of us,” I said. “To frame Emma. He was behind the fires, and behind my abduction. He planted the fake letters on Emma’s computer. I thought I’d had a lucky escape thanks to the car accident, but that was all part of the plan, too. He wanted the kidnapper to be caught so he would admit what he was hired to do and say he was hired by a woman. It was all a big setup so that you would kill Emma.” Never mind that Anderson hadn’t killed her with his own hands. We all knew the decision to let her die had been his in the end. And now, he would have to live with having condemned the woman he’d loved so desperately to die over a betrayal she wasn’t even guilty of.
My hand was squeezing the bedpost so hard my knuckles were turning white and my fingers were going numb. My pulse was drumming erratically in my throat, and I had to remind myself to draw the occasional breath as I waited for Anderson’s reaction. No matter what he’d promised, I feared an explosion of some kind.
The silence stretched, my heartbeat loud in my ears as I held myself tense and ready—for what, I don’t know. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and risked a look in Anderson’s direction.
His face had a slightly gray cast to it, and his bloodshot eyes were rimmed with red. His lips were pressed together in a tight line, and I saw no evidence that he was even breathing. But when he met my eyes, there was no sign that he had turned into the automaton of the other night, nor that he was about to explode with temper. There was just pain, and a soul-deep sadness that brought tears to my eyes.
I wanted to say something to break the silence, find some words of sympathy, or comfort. Anything to break the tension, if only for a second. But there were no words.
Anderson blinked rapidly a few times, then let out a slow, hissing breath. “Do you know what the worst thing about this is?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
I shook my head mutely. Everything about it seemed equally awful to me.
He reached up to rub his eyes, as if he could make the haunted expression in them go away. “The worst part is that this doesn’t hurt as much as Konstantin hoped it would. Because you see, Nikki, I’ve done worse.”