Chaos Bound (33 page)

‘You’re lying,’ Nicola cried.

‘No,’ Seth said. ‘I'm not. I've been working undercover to bring Elmore Deckkart to justice for his crimes. Your father was also part of my investigation for his increasing role within the Reapers.’

Grogan looked furious. ‘I knew it. I didn’t buy your story about being a city official on the take, not for a second.’ He sneered at Seth. ‘You think you’re going to last two seconds on the streets, Hallow? You’re a dead man.’

Nicola gave a small sob and the flintlock wavered. I pulled out Maya’s gun to cover Grogan, so he didn’t try to make a run for it. Seth reached out tentatively for the weapon in Nicola’s shaking hands.

‘Good girl.’ Seth’s voice was silky smooth. I registered the snake charmer tone a moment too late. He took the flintlock from Nicola, hooked his finger around the trigger and shot Grogan in the face. The bark of the pistol bounced around the room and Grogan’s head snapped back, before he crumpled to the ground. Nicola screamed and threw herself at her father’s limp body, punching him. I swung my wheellock to aim at Seth.

‘Care to explain?’ I asked coldly.

Seth threw the smoking flintlock on the ground. ‘She was right and you know it. Ivor Grogan was a monster that deserved to die.’

‘Undercover, hey? It was all pretend, hey?’ I drawled. ‘What about the assassin who attacked Nicola in her dressing room at the Iron Horse? Grogan implied someone was trying to scare him off some big time business deal. You sent the assassin, didn’t you.’

‘Nicola was never in any real danger.’ Seth shrugged, not bothering to deny it. ‘He was someone from out of town I hired to give her a scare, that was all. I was trying to rattle Grogan’s cage, maybe force him to make a bad move. I had no idea you’d be there.’

‘Your hired goon tried to kill me,’ I said.

‘I'm sorry, Lora. Again, I had no idea. The situation clearly got out of hand.’

‘So this was all part of an act? You campaigning for the head position of the Reaper Street Gang, while secretly preparing a case to tear them down? What a relief. Now the City Watch can dismantle the Reapers, leaving the streets of Harken City safe for her citizens once again.’

‘In an ideal world, Lora.’ Seth’s smile was sly. ‘In an ideal world.’

‘What’s the plan now?’

His smile slipped, eyes dropping to the wheellock in my hand. ‘Could you point that some place other than at me, please?’

‘After you tell me why you murdered Ivor Grogan in cold blood.’

‘You’re hardly an angel yourself.’

‘No. I'm only half angel. Now spill.’

Seth ran a hand over his goatee and gave a long sigh. ‘You have to understand something, Lora. Working for the City Watch is a thankless job, and I'm a man with expensive tastes. It was time for me to step up in the ranks. I just couldn’t decide which rank I wanted to pursue. You might say, I was keeping my options open.’

‘Doesn’t sound like a hard choice to me.’

‘Then you’re not seeing all the angles.’

‘Did you know I was going to be in the cage here tonight?’

‘No.’ Seth’s tawny eyes darkened. ‘I would never have put you in that position.’

His words rang true, and I finally lowered the wheellock. We both looked at Nicola, who was now huddled in a heap by her father, sobbing into her hands. Neither of us moved to help her.

‘You’re going to do something for me,’ I told Seth.

His eyes turned wary. ‘Anything. You know that.’

‘We’re going to find Roman, and you’re going to take him to Casper to get better.’ My eyes narrowed on him. ‘You’re going to help me, because you know he can be saved. You’ve helped nephilim in the past. Now you’ll help him.’

‘You ask too much of me,’ Seth said. His head shifted back and I caught a glint of something dangerous staring back at me. I realised, in this moment, I was seeing Seth for what he really was. A man with no soul.

‘You want Roman dead, because he doesn’t fit into the scenario you’ve got worked out.’ My voice was even and strong, and I was proud of myself. ‘You’ve got this idea we’re going to be some sort of power couple. You want what was stripped from you when you were hellspawn. You want a return to glory.’ I shook my head. ‘It won’t happen, Seth. Not now, not ever.’

‘You sound very sure of your theories on me.’ The look in Seth’s eyes cloaked itself, and his chin inched down a fraction. ‘However, we need to focus on the more immediate problem. Roman doesn’t need a saviour. He needs to be caught and put down.’ Seth said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. ‘The Regulator you knew is gone, and you can’t bring him back.’

‘You didn’t think that about Casper,’ I reminded him.

‘Casper didn’t have giant fucking wings.’

‘We’re going to try anyway.’

Seth folded his arms, frowning. ‘If I refuse?’

‘Then you’ll break things between us beyond repair.’ I tried to sound as sure as I felt. Tried not to sound scared and desperate. ‘We’ve got a long history together, and you’ve always told me you’ll be there for me.’ I swallowed past a dry throat. ‘I'm begging you, Seth.’

A few heartbeats passed before Seth unfolded his arms with a resigned look.

‘Fine. I'll help you.’ He raised a hand to lightly touch the bloodied side of his head. ‘We’ll take Roman to the Outlands. But you have to promise me something.’

‘What?’

‘You have to give him the space he needs to heal. I've seen nephilim struggle with this sickness and it can take a long time to recover. You’ll just be a distraction he doesn’t need.’

I was about to agree to his terms, when a thought slammed into me like a brick between the eyes and I spoke without thinking. ‘Which was kind of the plan, right?’

Seth’s eyebrows drew together. ‘What are you talking about now?’

‘I heard a rumour.’ My fingers clenched around the wheellock by my side. ‘That the nephilim’s berserker madness wasn’t just genetic bad luck. It was from a poison. I heard when a nephilim becomes too hard to handle, the Grigori has them poisoned. A kind of poison that brings on the berserker madness.’

‘What are you implying, Lora?’ Seth sounded tired. ‘Get to the point.’

I tapped the wheellock against my leg, thinking hard. ‘It was pretty convenient, you taking me to the Outlands to meet Casper, right about the same time Roman was getting sick. It was perfect, like you were handing me the solution to Roman’s problem on a silver platter. Like maybe everything was a set up from the beginning, with you coming out the hero at the end, and my relationship with Roman severed.’

‘You sound paranoid, Lora.’ That dangerous glint was back in the golden depths of Seth’s eyes. I knew he was worried about something, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I'd just realised how far Seth might go to keep anyone else from loving me, or that I believed him capable of such a devious act.

‘Am I paranoid?’ I whispered. ‘Or am I finally seeing your true face.’

‘I don’t know who has been filling your head with this nonsense about poison, but it has to stop.’ Seth stepped towards me. ‘Trust me to help you, or you don’t. Simple as that.’

My eyes dropped to Nicola. ‘You make it hard to trust you.’

‘I'm doing what’s best,’ Seth said, voice clipped. ‘Like I always do. Like I always will.’

My torn and bloody leg gave an agonising throb and I swayed, grabbing the bars of the cage for support.

‘You need a hospital.’ Seth still sounded angry. ‘I swore I'd help you, and I will.’ He stabbed a finger to his chest. ‘I'm the only one who can help him at this point. You’d do well to remember that.’

His anger was a quiet fury, a hurricane of rage that boiled in his eyes and I nodded warily. Seth might have been madder than hell at my accusation, though I noticed he hadn’t exactly denied it. But I held my tongue. I needed Seth. After the torture Roman had been put through, and knowing I was responsible, I was willing to trade anything to see Roman safe. Even the tattered remains of my friendship with Seth.

The weather was warm against my skin, the beer cold in my hand. I sat at the wooden table on the veranda of Casper’s new home, my feet comfortably raised up on an esky filled with beer. Someone had made butter biscuits and I had set them on the table with a pitcher of cold water.

Casper had made the move from West Sydney to rural Queensland and the new property was surrounded by rough Australian bush and patches of scorched red dirt. From the closest Weald checkpoint, Casper’s home was a long drive down stretches of wide, dusty roads.

The scorching sun beat down from a clear sky and the air was hot and dry. My joints liked this weather, though my skin, used to the overcast skies of Harken, did not.

Beyond the veranda, a group of nephilim were stripped to their scruffy jeans, covered in sweat as they practised sword fighting. Steel clashed against steel, with shouts of encouragement from those who watched.

I watched, occasionally pressing the cold can of beer against the nasty sunburn on my cheeks. While all the men here were seasoned veterans, they still turned to Roman, seeking his advice. Word had gotten around like wildfire in the Outlands about a nephilim with wings the colour of snow. Nephilim all over had tracked Casper down, asking to stay. Casper, who had seemed to expect this turn of events, had bought a property with plenty of room, and soon cabins had been erected for newcomers.

I watched Roman swing his sword. He had changed. The harsh sun had given his bleached skin a molten honey glow, and his wings, which folded neatly behind him, were dazzling white. Well, after a shower, they were white. Right now, they were matted with red dirt. Some of his bulk had disappeared, and there was no hint of the madness that had dogged him those last days in The Weald.

‘How are you doing?’ Casper’s voice interrupted me. He sat down at the table, and stuffed a biscuit in his mouth. ‘You going to stay another week?’ he asked, spitting crumbs.

‘Maybe,’ I murmured. My eyes followed Roman as he finished his demonstration. He’d taken his newfound fame with the strong, silent strength that had attracted me to him in the first place.

There was nothing needing my immediate attention back in Harken. Grogan’s illegal blood sport had been reported to the authorities and with the location being in the Mayor’s family crypt, the scandal had seen Mayor Corelli kicked out of office. The audit against Blackgoat collapsed without the Mayor to spearhead it and so Blackgoat was now safe. Of course, that didn’t mean I was off the hook. My contract with the Order of Guides still had to be fulfilled. I'd resigned myself to the fact I couldn’t weasel out of it, but was drawing the line at wearing a uniform.

Seth had kept true to his promise in helping smuggle Roman to the Outlands, and while it had been a difficult task, he had never faltered, had never suggested it couldn’t be done. My suspicions about Seth had abated a little in the face of this, but not gone completely.

Casper swallowed his mouthful of biscuit. ‘How’s it going between you two?’

I shrugged, indicating I didn’t know. My fate felt entwined with Roman, and while things were strained between us now, I knew we would find our way back to each other. My feelings for Roman deepened with each day and, from his sidelong glances as me, I knew he missed me. But Roman was never returning to The Weald; I had accepted that painful fact, and was torn between staying with him in the Outlands and looking after my family in The Weald.

Crowhurst had finally changed back from his beast and was recovering with the aid of some nasty drink Orella cooked up for him every morning. Gideon was teaching me how to run Blackgoat Watch, and I was learning more sophisticated spells from Orella, to better defend those I loved. While I never gave Jonas Grundler’s mother a chance to experience the revenge she wanted for the death of her son, she had been satisfied at my gruesome description of Grogan’s death, which I might have exaggerated slightly.

Roman approached the veranda. ‘Lora, can you come over for a moment? I want to show the men a move and I need someone small.’ I hesitated and his lips parted in a smile. Staring at his soft lips, I knew I'd probably do anything Roman ever asked of me, as long as he would keep looking at me like that. Like he needed me. Like he wanted me.

‘I'll be right there,’ I said, then watched him walk away, marvelling at his flowing wings for the hundredth time, even if they were filthy.

‘You ever see the movie
Serendipity
?’ Casper asked me.

‘Nope.’ I pulled a hair tie from a pocket and pulled my hair back. While my eyes were still green, my roots had recently turned completely black. Wanting to keep my identity as nephilim under wraps for as long as I could, I had approached Casper for the secret to his bleached hair. He had passed over some eye-watering concoction he mixed himself and it worked a treat.

‘Terrible fucking movie,’ Casper said. ‘About two people who leave love to fate.’

‘Why did you watch it?’

‘I was trying to bang some chick.’

‘Lovely.’

Casper picked up another biscuit, eyes locked on it, not meeting mine. ‘Yeah, well. One thing that pissed me off about that movie was that you don’t leave stuff like that to chance.’

‘What stuff?’

Casper picked up another biscuit, nibbling its edges. ‘You know. True love and shit like that.’

‘You’re just all marshmallow inside, aren’t you?’

‘I'm just saying, when it’s true and pure, that’s important.’ His eyes met mine. ‘So you just tell me what you need or want, and I'll make it happen.’

My heart warmed at his words. ‘Thanks.’

Walking down the steps of the veranda and over to where Roman was waiting, Casper’s words echoed through my head. I didn’t want to leave my relationship with Roman to chance. I was certain I was heading towards my true destiny. I just needed to figure out how to have a family in both worlds.

Roman smiled at me as I approached, and I knew I would find a way.

Chaos Born

by Rebekah Turner