Die and Stay Dead (41 page)

“And I suppose I brought it on myself, too, when you tried to kill me,” I said. “Three times.”

“Oh, don’t look so wounded,” she said. “As I recall, you took a few shots at me yourself on top of that truck. Didn’t anyone ever tell you you’re not supposed to hit a woman?”

I remembered our fight on the truck, the feel of bandages under her black sweats. Now I understood. It had been part of her disguise, a way to make sure nothing could be traced back to her. She’d bound herself so she wouldn’t look female.

“Why are you doing this, Jordana?” I demanded.

“He’s my stepfather. It’s like I told you, he’s all the family I have left. I would do anything for him. He needed the Codex Goetia. I knew you would lead us to it, so I did what I had to.”

“You got in my head. You read my mind so you’d know where the fragments were as soon as I did,” I said. “Neat trick.”

“My birth father was human. My mother was a succubus. That left me with a few tricks up my sleeve. All it took was one kiss and I had a bridge directly into your mind. I could read your thoughts. I could influence you. Make you think things. Feel things.”

“That’s sick,” Bethany said.

“Jealous much?” Jordana hissed in her ear.

“That’s how you kept finding us,” I said. “The library. Battery Park. I’m guessing you would have been at the fountain, too, but Arkwright wanted to be there himself to take the last fragment. Some men can’t resist the urge to grandstand.”

“You don’t know anything about him,” she snapped. “Don’t pretend you know him!”

She pushed the gauntlet against Bethany’s head. There was something unhinged in Jordana’s eyes. I didn’t have any doubt that she would kill Bethany if I pushed her too far.

“Okay, okay,” I said, showing her my hands, trying to keep her calm. “I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn. Let’s not let things get out of hand.”

She laughed bitterly. She sounded nothing like the Jordana I knew. But which one was the real one? The one who’d laughed and cried with me over drinks in Brooklyn, or the murderer currently threatening Bethany’s life? How much of what she’d told me was true, and how much were lies meant to keep me wriggling on the line? Was Lucas West real?

“I can still read your thoughts, Trent,” Jordana said. “And the answer is no. You’re not Lucas West. The Lucas West I told you about was a boy I knew in high school. He died in a car crash before graduation. Drunk driving. I just told you what you wanted to hear—that you had a normal family, a normal life. You’re so pathetic. I didn’t even have a bridge into your mind yet when I fed you that story. I didn’t need it. You were so easy to read.”

A lie. Lucas West was a lie. It tore a hole in me. I’d wanted to believe it so badly I was blind to all the red flags. Bethany had seen them. She’d tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen. If I had, then maybe Bethany’s life wouldn’t be in danger right now. Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess at all.

“You should have just given me that fragment when I asked you to,” Jordana said, dragging Bethany backward down the hallway. “It would have saved you a lot of trouble.”

“Jordana, please,” I said, hoping I could still reason with her. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

“Doesn’t it?” she said. “In the end, which side did you think I’d be on, yours or my stepfather’s? I told you, he’s all the family I have left.”

“So not everything was a lie,” I said. “The things you told me about your mother, your brother, they were real. The trip to Aspen, the demon you saw there, that was real, too.”

Her mouth made a hard, tight line, and for a moment she didn’t say anything. I thought I’d gotten through to her, thought maybe I saw a hint of the Jordana I knew in her face, but it was gone in a flash.

She smirked. “Lies work best when there’s some truth to them.”

“Jordana, your stepfather isn’t who you think he is. He’s using you—”

“He’s not using me, he loves me!” she yelled. “He’s all I have left, and I’m all he has left. I would do anything for him. I even carried magic when he asked me to, spells that gave me unbelievable speed and agility. I took that magic inside me willingly, because it was what he wanted and I knew it would help him. That’s what you do for family. Not that you would know.”

A chill came over me. “My God, Jordana, he infected you. Arkwright purposely infected you.”

She laughed. “Do I look infected to you? Am I growing an extra arm, or a tail? Do you see any mutations anywhere on my body? As I recall, the last time we were together you got a pretty good look.”

“The infection doesn’t always change you physically,” I said. “But it affects your mind. Always. You know that.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me. In fact, I’ve never seen things so clearly before. I won’t let anyone come between me and my stepfather. Especially not
you
.”

If I thought my heart couldn’t break any more, I was wrong. “Was it
all
a lie?”

She looked at me with mock pity. “You were so easy to manipulate. So lonely, so desperate for someone to know you. But look at you. Did you really think I could love you? That
anyone
could? Every time you kissed me, every time you touched me, I cringed inside.”

Bethany squirmed in Jordana’s grip. “Don’t worry about me, Trent. Just take this bitch out already. She’s earned it.”

But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not Jordana. There had to be another way. I was starting to think this was all a mistake. A misunderstanding. I cared about this woman. I loved her. I couldn’t hurt her.

Jordana laughed. “See? Even now, your thoughts are so easy to mold.”

I snapped out of it. Damn. I was like putty in her hands. How much had she influenced my thoughts over the past two days? How often had she steered me away from realizing the truth about her?

“What about Calliope?” I asked. “You killed her, too, because she was getting too close. Only you got your inner sadist on, big time. Why? What did she ever do to you?”

“I hate to break it to you, loverboy, but I never even met the woman,” she said.

“You mean Arkwright killed her himself?” That could explain the different M.O., but Arkwright didn’t strike me as someone who liked to get his hands dirty.

Jordana laughed derisively. “Please. That injury to his leg is real, courtesy of Nahash-Dred. It’ll never heal right. He can barely walk without a cane. Doesn’t exactly make him the perfect killer, now does it? Sure, Erickson was keeping tabs on Calliope after she started getting cozy with Yrouel, but he didn’t kill her and neither did I. Much as I would have loved to off that nosy bitch for him, I didn’t get the chance. Someone beat me to it.”

Someone else killed Calliope? That sealed it. It had to have been Nahash-Dred himself. Somehow, the demon had found her. He’d broken in through the attic window and killed her. But that still didn’t feel right. There’d been no sign of a struggle, just some blood on the stairs and the horror show in the bedroom.
Nahash-Dred killed them with but a thought.
Was that how he’d pulled it off? With magic?

Jordana dragged Bethany around a corner. Turning the corner after them, I saw Isaac standing farther down the hall. He was holding my gun in his hand. I’d never been so happy to see anyone.

“You’re going to want to let her go now, Jordana,” Isaac said.

Jordana spun around, startled. She backed against the wall, keeping Bethany in front of her. She pressed the gauntlet against the back of Bethany’s head.

“Don’t come any closer, either of you!” she yelled.

“Jordana, we can help you,” I said. “The magic inside you is infecting your mind. This isn’t you. I know it’s not.”

“Shut up!” she yelled. “Just shut up! I need to think!”

“The things you told me about yourself were true. The tears you cried for your brother and your mother were real,” I said. “Look at what you’re doing. You’re hurting people. Killing people. Is this what they would have wanted?”

Something snapped in her. Her face reddened with fury. “You leave them out of this! Don’t you talk about them!”

She took the gauntlet off of Bethany’s head and pointed it at me. It started to whine, powering up. I dove to the floor as the blast tore a blackened chunk out of the wall behind me. Several burning, framed paintings flew over me. An antique wooden end table exploded just inches from where I lay with my hands over my head. Pieces rained down around me like hailstones.

I looked up to see Jordana swing the gauntlet toward Isaac, the blast moving in a wide arc across the hallway and destroying more of the walls. Isaac threw himself through a nearby door and into the room beyond it. The blast tore a chasm in the floor and blew apart a section of the wall.

The hallway was filled with smoke and dust. I coughed it out of my lungs and got to my feet. Through the haze, I saw Jordana drag Bethany away, farther into the house.

Thirty-One

Isaac came back into the hallway, a black smear of ash on one cheek. He brushed plaster dust off his shoulders and arms. “We need to talk about your girlfriend,” he said.

“Save it,” I said. “Jordana’s our only link to finding Arkwright, and she’s got Bethany.”

I jumped over the hole Jordana had blasted in the hallway floor, and started after them. Isaac walked quickly to keep up.

“Trent, I heard the awful things Jordana said—”

I cut him off. I didn’t want to talk about it. “If we don’t get through to her first, she’ll kill Bethany the moment she doesn’t need her anymore. We can’t let her leave this house.”

Isaac nodded. “Agreed. I take it you have a plan?”

“This is my fault,” I said. “I’ll finish it, one way or the other. You just make sure Bethany is safe.”

He handed me my Bersa. “You’ll need this.”

I took the gun from him and holstered it. “Not like that. I can get through to her. I know I can. Some part of the real Jordana is still in there.”

“And if you’re wrong?” he asked.

I didn’t reply. We both knew what the answer was.

Figuring out where Jordana had gone wasn’t hard. She and Bethany had both left smeary, plaster-dust footprints on the carpet. We followed the trail to a door at the center of the house. On the other side we found ourselves on the top level of Erickson Arkwright’s prized, three-story library. We were on the south side of the balcony that wrapped around the perimeter of the room.

Jordana was directly across from us, on the north side. She was dragging Bethany toward a door in the wall.

“Jordana, wait!” I called. “Let her go. Take me instead, okay? Then we can talk. We can talk about everything. It’s not too late.”

“You just don’t give up, do you?” Jordana pushed the Thracian Gauntlet into the side of Bethany’s face. “Stay back, or I’ll turn her skull into dust. You know I will.”

Isaac whispered to me, “I can kill her from here, Trent. There’s a spell that’s quick and painless. She won’t suffer, I promise you. She won’t even know what hit her.”

“Don’t,” I hissed back.

“We may not have a choice.”

“Don’t!”

“Safe passage out of the house,” Jordana continued. “That’s what you said. Safe passage so I can get back to Erickson.”

“Why help him, Jordana? He wants to end the world,” I said.

“I
want
it to end!” she cried. “This world took
everything
from me! My brother. My mother. It took my birth father before I was even born. So if the world has to burn, I say let it!”

Above us, the stained-glass window in the library’s ceiling exploded inward as Gabrielle came crashing through it. Shards of glass rained down three stories to shatter on the floor below. Gabrielle flew down into the atrium. She cast a spell, and suddenly the door behind Jordana swelled and warped in its frame. Jordana tried to pull the door open, but it was stuck. She was trapped on the balcony with nowhere to run.

“Let Bethany go,” Gabrielle said, hovering in midair.

“Stay back!” Jordana yelled. She was breathing hard. Her eyes darted nervously around the room, trying to find a way out. She was like a cornered animal. That made me nervous, especially with the gauntlet still pressed against the side of Bethany’s face. Jordana was too unpredictable to be certain what she would do next.

“You’ve been planning this from the start, Jordana,” Gabrielle said. “You gained my trust. Got me to make the necessary introductions. You used me.”

Jordana looked at her again, but her expression was one of confusion. The anger and determination were gone, as if some part of her was trying to push through the infection.

“No, I … that’s not why…” she said, her voice trembling.

“That’s not why you went to those meetings, is it, Jordana?” I said. I started along the wraparound balcony toward her. I kept my voice calm and my hands up to show her I didn’t mean any harm. “Your grief over your mother’s death was real. And when you met Gabrielle at the meetings, maybe your friendship was real, too, at first. Maybe it still can be.”

“I—I told Erickson I was spending time with Gabrielle, and that she worked with the—the Five-Pointed Star,” Jordana stammered. We were getting a glimpse of the real Jordana now, I was sure of it. She was fighting to break the infection’s hold on her. “Erickson told me there was someone else in the Five-Pointed Star, the Immortal Storm, a man who—who doesn’t know who he is. He put—he put more magic inside me. He told me what to do, and I
had
to…”

“He took advantage of your friendship with Gabrielle,” I said, edging closer. “He twisted it to serve his own ends. He did the same to you. He turned you into a tool he could use. Let Bethany go and put the gauntlet down, Jordana. You don’t owe that man anything.”

“No! He’s all I have left!”

Just as I thought we were starting to get through to her, her face changed, hardening. Her eyes focused on me like lasers. Damn. The infection was too strong.

She smirked. “Erickson’s plan was brilliant. Use your amnesia to keep you on the hook and get the Five-Pointed Star to find the fragments for us. I wish I’d thought of it myself.” She pulled Bethany closer. “Better keep your distance, loverboy. This could get messy. You, too, Gabrielle. Stay back.”