Chains of Ice (35 page)

Because Avni used the ropes to tie his hands to the posts on the back, and did a good job. They bit into his wrists, cut off the circulation in his hands.

John couldn’t budge them—at least not by any normal means.

Quietly, carefully, he started to use his mind on the knots.

He might be vulnerable, but he was still making them nervous.

She eased toward the hallway.

She didn’t know where her father was—but she did know where he kept his weapons.

Then Avni’s shiny obsidian-glass eyes swung her direction. She snapped her fingers. “Brandon! Hang on to Genny.”

Genny turned on her heel and dashed.

Brandon lunged, grabbed her, gripped her wrist, ripped the scab off one of her burns.

She screamed in pain, then in protest. “You promised John I could leave!”

“Don’t.” Brandon tried to pet her hair. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Don’t touch me!” She slapped at him.

He ducked and sniveled.

“Damn you, Brandon. Control her!” Avni raised her hands—a spark glimmered.

He twisted Genny’s arms behind her back. “Please,” he said. “Stop fighting. She’ll hurt us. I love you.”

“I thought you only loved me, Brandon,” Avni mocked.

“I do. I love you, Avni.” The poor fool had become nothing but a tool in Avni’s hands.

Avni laughed. “You see what his love is worth, Genny.”

“I love
you
,” he whispered in Genny’s ear.

She had to try. “Then let . . . me . . . go.”

“I can’t.” He reeked of sweat and urine and something sickly sweet.

She wanted to gag.

Instead, she forced herself to relax. She stood calmly, got her breath, ignored his stench and the agony of the burns Avni had so carefully placed across her skin.

No matter how emaciated he was, Brandon was still stronger. Yet deep inside his belly, she could see a flame burning. Whatever Avni had given him was consuming him, destroying him. His mind was a ruin, his attention span destroyed.

She had to wait for her moment.

“John, look at your girlfriend,” Gary said. “You gave yourself up for her. She can’t
wait
to leave you.”

John flicked a glance at Genny, looked toward the entrance. “You promised she could leave.”

Yes, I’ll run when I get the chance.
Although he didn’t intend that she return.

She had other plans.

“Gary promised. I didn’t.” Avni laughed, a harsh sound that sounded as if it tore at her lungs.

In the last two and a half years, Genny had learned a few things about survival.

Conserve your strength.

Weigh your opponent.

If you can only strike once, strike to kill.

Most important—the person who stays alive the longest, wins.

Genny intended that she and John should win.

“I can’t believe you,” she said, pinning Avni with her accusing gaze. “You loved the lynx, the outdoors, the wildlife studies. You helped me find my feet in a strange land. Was it all acting? I thought you were my friend.”

“I was never your friend. I wanted to study in India, and instead I was in that lousy village on a mission. I was supposed to keep an eye on him.” Avni lifted her chin toward John. “I was supposed to recruit him. I couldn’t even get close to him. Then you showed up. So I told you all about what an animal he was, how good he was in bed. I got you interested in him.”

Genny writhed in embarrassment.

John gave off such an impression of ease, his grin looked genuine and amused. “Is that right, Genny?”

“No.” The single word was all too obviously a lie.

“You can tell me about it later.” His smile looked casual, but his blue eyes were light and icy.

Genny could have told the Others he was furious.

But maybe they knew, for Gary snapped, “There isn’t going to be a later.”

“You, Genny . . . you were such an innocent ass. Always were so easy to influence.” Avni’s dark eyes gleamed with remembered elation. “You fell in love with him. Then
he
fell in love with
you
and it was perfect. I thought he’d follow you like a puppy to New York; I would remind him how much he hated the Gypsy Travel Agency and we’d have him. But it didn’t work that way. Somehow, when he thought you had died, that convinced him to return to lead the Chosen Ones.”

“John Powell was always so freaking honorable.” Deliberately, Gary placed the pistol on the table. “Of course, all that honor didn’t stop him from trying to steal my team while he thought I wouldn’t notice. He undermined me. Made fun of me.”

Avni paid no attention to Gary. “I never had a chance of winning. But I don’t dare fail again.” With a grimace at Genny, she lifted her T-shirt in demonstration.

Genny flinched.

Avni’s skin was shriveled and melted; it looked as if she’d turned her flame on herself. And maybe she had.

“The master doesn’t accept failure.” Avni dropped her shirt and turned to Gary. “I suggest you remember that, and who you work for.”

“I won’t fail,” Gary said coolly. Bending his head, he narrowed his eyes at John. His lids fluttered.

Genny heard a hum, high pitched and menacing.

As if he suffered a seizure, John’s eyes rolled back in his head. He jerked, then went rigid, his face frozen into an agonized grimace.

“John!” Genny yanked at Brandon’s grip, trying to run to John.

Brandon yanked back, twisting her wrists until she released a single sob.

John went limp, his head lolling on his neck.

“John. Can you hear me?
John
.” Genny turned to Gary, alight with fury. “What did you do to him?”

“I’m not like the rest of the Abandoned Ones. I have more than one trick to my repertoire. Watch.” Once again, Gary lowered his head and stared at John.

Genny heard that otherworldly hum.

Gary’s lids fluttered.

At once John went rigid, his back arched and arms strained against the ropes. His face was a mask of suffering.

“Let him go!” Genny shouted.

Gary held the pose. The hum continued. Suddenly, as if he had exhausted his power, he relaxed.

Again John went limp, sagging against the restraints. Was he unconscious?

Genny scrutinized him, looking for any sign of life—a pulse at his neck, a twitch of his fingers.

Nothing.

Gary sighed. And smiled. “I can twist my mind reading into mind assault. It’s not so different, really.”

“You’ve killed him,” Genny whispered.

“No, I haven’t.” Gary was slimy with charm. “Not yet. What would the fun of that be? He has a lot more suffering in him before he dies. Perhaps you want to tell me where that leather bag is, and spare him more pain?”

“You broke your vow to defend the Chosen Ones and the children they protect. You tie people to a chair to torture them. You’re a coward.” She viewed him through a flush of rage. “Why would I believe a word you say?”

Gary walked over to her and slapped her, open-handed, with the force of his arm behind him.

She sagged in Brandon’s arms, saw stars that whirled and blinked.

“Wrong answer,” Gary said.

Brandon helped her get her feet under her. He held her with both hands on her shoulders.

Slowly, John lifted his head. His eyes were blood-shot, his complexion pale, but something had shifted under his skin. Something about the way he viewed the Others reminded Genny of the day he’d discovered his photo in her backpack.

They didn’t realize it, but they had unloosed the wild man.

Gary had just made a big mistake.

“When I was in Russia, I was always worried about the Gypsy Travel Agency sending agents after me.” John’s gaze shifted from Gary to Avni and back. “It looks like I was worried about the wrong group.”

Gary was oblivious to the return of John’s savage self. “Did you ever tell your girlfriend why you were in exile?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but turned to Genny. “He had to run away after he screwed up my mission. Sun Hee was his wife . . . Did he tell you he had been married?”

“I knew that, yes.”

“Sun Hee was bored with John’s pedestrian lovemaking.” Gary aimed all his charisma at Genny.

“Now, Gary”—Genny laughed softly, intent on keeping Gary’s attention fixed on her—“you forget. I’ve slept with John. I know better.”

Gary’s smile and charm faded. “He won’t be worth much to you when I’ve finished with him.” For a moment, his attention shifted to John.

She thought he was going to blast John again. “Why was he in exile?” she asked.

For a moment, he wavered, but the temptation to smear John’s character proved too tempting. “Your wonderful hero burned his friends to death to get even with me and his wife—”

Genny cut him off. “For cheating.”

“He put me in a coma.” Gary put his hands to his head. “I could hear the dripping, the IV dripping, so slowly. I could hear the nurses talking. I could hear the TV. I knew the smells of that ghastly place. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. And always that dripping, one drop at a time, so . . . slowly. I would wait for it, like Chinese water torture . . .” He stood like a statue.

John was still breathing as if trying to vanquish the pain.

Avni waited, smiling slightly as she watched Gary.

Brandon’s hands no longer gripped Genny so tightly.

But Genny wanted to know . . . “What happened then?”

Gary shuddered, once, and stilled. But he didn’t take his hands away from his head. “I heard a voice in my mind.”

A chill slid up Genny’s spine. “Who was it?”

“You know who it was,” Gary said dreamily.

Yes.
She knew.

“He knew my thoughts,” Gary said. “He talked about my friends, about how they never came to see me anymore. He talked to me about John and how he had betrayed me. He told me all I had to do was give him the security code to the Gypsy Travel Agency and I could walk again. Walk the streets, be a man again and not a helpless wreck.”

“So you said yes,” Genny said.

“No! I was strong. I said no. But he promised me I would be healthy and dynamic. That I would serve him in this world and the next.” Gary’s hands curled in his hair. “I swore I wouldn’t. But no one from the Gypsy Travel Agency ever came to visit me. They left me alone in the dark listening to that damned
drip
. And then . . .”

He paused so long, Genny prompted him. “And then?”

“Then I heard the nurses. I didn’t have much longer. I had barely lived, and I was dying. I was the brightest, the bravest, the best. And I was dying. So I called to him . . . and I gave him the code . . . and after the Gypsy Travel Agency exploded, blew into bits so small they were never recovered . . . I was healed.”

Genny glanced at John.

His color had returned to normal, and he viewed Gary the way the lynx viewed prey.

Avni could see it, too. Genny could tell. But Avni made no move to warn Gary.

“You betrayed the Chosen Ones,” Genny said.

Gary dropped his hands and stared at John. “They betrayed me first. Irving . . . Irving never liked me, and I made him pay.” He laughed. “It was great. He looked like a rag doll falling down those stairs, and I could hear those old bones crunch on each step.”

The sheer, brutal pleasure and malice made Genny want to vomit.

“John betrayed me.” Gary was breathing hard, still concentrating on John. “I’m going to make him suffer and die!”

Not now, you’re not. Not while I can still wave a red flag at you.
“No one betrayed you. You were the commander of the mission. The failure was yours.” Genny was relentless, pounding at Gary. “In your heart, you know it. That’s why you’re so ashamed. You broke your word. You joined with evil. What happened at the volcano was your fault!”