Rogue Descendant (Nikki Glass) (7 page)

For the most part, I didn’t truly understand how my powers worked. It would probably take years of trial and error before I had any real confidence in them. But it did seem they worked better in the moonlight, which made sense because Artemis was a moon goddess as well as a huntress.

“The question then becomes, what do we do if I find him?” I gave Anderson a hard look. “I ran into Cyrus the other day, and he informed me that his father is still an Olympian and under their protection. He said he’d talked to you about it and you’d agreed to leave Konstantin alone.”

Anderson didn’t bother trying to act like he felt guilty about his tacit deception. “I gave him that impression, it’s true. And if there’s any way we can eliminate Konstantin without Cyrus having to know we’re responsible, that’s how we’ll do it.”

I shook my head. “If you kill him and he disappears off the face of the earth, everyone’s going to know you were behind it.”

“Not true. Only you know what I can do. As far as anyone else is concerned, I can’t kill Konstantin unless I have a Descendant around to do my dirty
work, and I don’t. As long as we leave no evidence that can be traced back to us, Cyrus will have to assume that one of Konstantin’s other enemies got to him. An Olympian enemy, because, believe me, those exist.”

I did believe him about Konstantin having enemies within the Olympians. There were probably plenty of them who’d chafed under his rule over the years. But I didn’t buy the idea that Anderson wouldn’t be suspect number one.

“Look,” Anderson said, leaning forward and clasping his hands on the desk, “Cyrus isn’t going to start a war unless he’s certain I’ve broken our treaty. Unlike Konstantin, he actually values people and would care if someone close to him got killed. It’s not something he’s going to risk unless he has to.”

I reluctantly had to admit that Anderson had a point. I knew Cyrus wasn’t as nice a guy as he pretended to be, but he wasn’t
evil
. After all, he was protecting his father out of loyalty—misguided though it might be—and that proved he cared about something other than himself. I didn’t know who else among the Olympians Cyrus cared about, but I did know he cared about Blake. And Blake could very easily get killed if we went to war.

“So what you’re saying is if I find Konstantin, I should keep my mouth shut to everyone else and only tell you. Right?”

Anderson nodded. “Exactly. I don’t mind everyone knowing you’re hunting him, because no one would believe you weren’t, after what happened. But
if you find him, that has to be our secret. And I’ll take care of what needs to be done.”

I still didn’t like it, not one bit. But I’d gotten as much concession out of Anderson as I was going to, and I had to be satisfied with it.

The rest of the
day didn’t go a whole lot better than the beginning of it had. Steph called me to say the fire investigator had already declared the incident was arson. Whoever had set it had made no attempt to be subtle or try to hide the crime. Which made sense, considering the whole point of it was for me to know it was the start of Konstantin’s path to revenge.

Steph was brisk and businesslike when we talked, telling me the facts without falling apart or betraying any emotion whatsoever. She was in problem-solver mode, and she’d distanced herself from her own pain. Considering how much charity work she did, and how often she ended up in charge of the charity functions she worked on, she was better suited for the job than I was. She’d already been in touch with the insurance company and had even tracked down the builder who’d designed and constructed the house more than twenty years ago.

Not once did Steph hint that she blamed me for what had happened, but I didn’t know how she could
not
. I had already brought so much misery into her life. She’d been attacked by Alexis because of me, and now her childhood home had been destroyed. She didn’t need me to tell her the fire had something to do with me, not after it was declared arson. Guilt pounded at me relentlessly, and I didn’t know what to do with it. Big Sister Steph was the one I leaned on when I needed emotional support, but that wasn’t an option this time.

I tried burying myself in work, digging up my previous list of Olympian properties in the D.C. area and then doing some research to see if they’d bought anything else since last I’d checked. Let me tell you, the Olympians own a lot of property, both commercial and residential, and I doubted I’d identified all of it despite my research. They knew how to use shell corporations and offshore bank accounts and out-and-out bribery to hide their assets. And let’s not even talk about their worldwide holdings.

My gut told me Konstantin would not have left town, and the fact that he’d sent that email from a local FedEx seemed to support the theory. My ever-present voice of self-doubt pointed out that Konstantin could easily have hired someone to do the dirty work from afar. Maybe he was living like the king he thought himself to be in Monte Carlo or somewhere else far away from here. But if I had to search the whole world for him, I was in deep trouble.

I mapped out a driving route that would take me
past many of the Olympian properties that I deemed likely candidates. It would take several nights to do a drive-by on every one, especially if I wanted to actually get some sleep once in a while. For the time being, I was skipping the places that were directly owned by known Olympians, figuring those were just too obvious, but that still left me with a daunting list of possibilities. Yet I had to start somewhere.

I got so caught up in what I was doing that I forgot to eat lunch, and when I finally was satisfied with my itinerary for the first night, the sun was on its way down and I was ravenous. I ventured downstairs into the kitchen, hoping someone was cooking a communal dinner.

It was something of a frail hope, as only Maggie and Logan did much in the way of cooking, and they usually let everyone know when they were doing it. Anderson made a vat of chili every once in a while, and Jack had once made some kind of stew that no one in the house had been willing to touch. Maybe he’d thought he’d fool me into tasting it, seeing as I was the new person, but I wasn’t stupid enough to eat something a trickster prepared.

There were no enticing aromas drifting from the kitchen, and I figured it would be a Lean Cuisine night for me. However, I was in luck after all. There were no enticing smells, but Logan was hard at work on some kind of cold noodle dish. A huge salad bowl filled with noodles in brown sauce sat on the counter, and Logan was shredding a head of bok choy with the ease and quickness of a professional.

“Need a sous chef?” I asked as he tossed the shredded bok choy in with the noodles.

Logan looked at me doubtfully as he sliced a red pepper into ribbons. If it had been me wielding the knife, I’d probably have sliced my own fingers off, even if I
was
looking at what I was doing. He jerked his chin toward the salad bowl.

“You can toss all of that together, if you’d like. I’m almost done with the knife-work.”

I was just as happy not to be put to work slicing veggies, as it would take me at least four times as long as it was taking him. The man was almost as fast and efficient as a Cuisinart. He was a descendant of Tyr, a Germanic war god, and apparently his supernatural skills with weapons carried over to the kitchen.

I grabbed the salad tongs and began gingerly tossing the noodles and veggies with the sauce. I was afraid to do it too vigorously, or I’d spill stuff all over the place. Close up, I could smell soy sauce and ginger, and now the aromatic tang of red pepper. Leave it to Logan to make a cold salad into an enticing meal.

Logan finished his chopping and shredding, then nudged me aside to take over tossing the noodles. I don’t think he’d really wanted my help in the first place.

I drifted into the breakfast nook, which is like a mini-sunroom with three walls of glass looking out over the back lawn. Sunset tinged the scattered clouds with hints of peach and pink, and the woods beyond the lawn created the illusion that we were miles from civilization.

It was a nice view, until I saw the familiar orange and black stripes through a break in the trees. Moments later, Sita emerged onto the lawn, ambling along like she was taking a leisurely tour. I didn’t think it was smart of Jamaal to bring her this close to the house, particularly when she didn’t seem to differentiate friend from foe. Then again, I didn’t see Jamaal anywhere, so Sita might have decided to go on a walkabout all by herself, which did not speak well of his ability to control her.

“What are you looking at?” Logan asked as he set a couple of bowls of noodles down on the table.

Mutely, I pointed.

“Oh.” Logan sounded about as thrilled to see her as I was. There had been an . . . incident with Logan and Sita before and he’d almost gotten mauled before Jamaal was able to reel her in. I think he held a bit of a grudge. “Where the hell is Jamaal?” he muttered, and it was a good question.

If Sita were to leave the edge of the property, that would be bad. I didn’t want to think about how the humans around us would react if she toured the neighborhood, nor did I want to think about what Sita would do if she took exception to the reactions.

“We can’t just let her wander around loose,” I said.

“I know,” Logan replied grimly, then headed back into the main part of the kitchen and grabbed the chef’s knife he’d been using. “I’ll keep the damn cat busy, and you use your mojo to find Jamaal and drag his ass over here to corral her.”

This did not sound like the world’s greatest plan to me. Logan might be a war god descendant and really good with a knife, but I doubted he was a match for a full-grown tiger. Especially a supernatural one that might have powers we were as yet unaware of. However, he and I could survive being mauled if it came to that; our human neighbors could not. I hoped Jamaal wasn’t passed out somewhere.

Logan strode out the back door with me following close on his heels. Sita caught sight of us immediately and went eerily still. Her lips pulled back in a snarl.

“I am going to kick Jamaal’s ass,” Logan muttered, then started toward Sita with a resigned sigh.

I began edging my way toward the woods, keeping a wary eye on the tiger. She
should
have been focused on Logan, who was coming directly toward her, but to my dismay, she was looking straight at me.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” Logan called, and I had to admit I was impressed with his bravery. He was acting like initiating hand-to-claw fighting with a supernatural tiger was nothing more than an annoying inconvenience.

Sita flicked a glance at Logan, flattening her ears, and I thought our plan, such as it was, was working. I sped up, making sure not to get any closer to her on my way to the woods. Unfortunately, Sita dismissed Logan after that single glance, fixing her gaze on me once more and stalking toward me. I’m no expert at reading tiger body language, but the predatory glide of her movement suggested she wasn’t heading over
to give me an affectionate head-butt like she’d given Jamaal. I’d thought Jamaal was being a smartass when he said Sita didn’t like me, but I was beginning to think he’d meant it literally.

“Oh, come on, you dumb animal,” Logan said, moving to put himself between me and the tiger. “She’s no threat.
I’m
the one you have to worry about.”

Sita roared, and I didn’t know if she was pissed off because Logan had gotten between her and her prey, or if she was smarter than your average tiger and was insulted by the “dumb animal” comment. Logan crouched, ready for the tiger’s attack, but Sita decided that was a good time to remind us that she wasn’t really a tiger and was in fact a supernatural being. Instead of attacking Logan to get him out of the way, she merely leapt over him, her ridiculously powerful haunches lifting her so high that she sailed over the point of Logan’s knife as he tried to strike at her.

“Shit!” I yelled succinctly, and though I knew running would only stimulate her predatory instincts, I didn’t have a choice.

I bolted for the door as Logan yelled again, trying in vain to distract Sita. I could have sworn I felt the vibration of her footsteps as she thundered after me, but that was probably just my imagination. I knew better than to look over my shoulder, because the last thing I needed was to lose speed.

I made it to the door and shoved it open, skidding over the threshold and practically falling flat on
my face. I turned to push the door closed, and saw that Sita was almost upon me. I pushed with all my might, and this time I really did knock myself down. But the door closed before Sita made it through, and for a moment, I lay there on the floor and tried to regain my breath and slow down my frantic heart.

Until Sita gave me another nasty reminder that she wasn’t a natural tiger and passed right through the door.

There was nothing I could do to defend myself. I was lying on my back on the floor, gasping for breath, and she was practically on top of me. She roared directly in my face, so close I could feel the heat and dampness of her breath. I closed my eyes and tried to brace myself for the pain I was about to suffer, and the horrifying ordeal of death that would come shortly after.

She roared again, nowhere near as close to my face, and I opened my eyes to see that Logan stood in the doorway and had grabbed her tail with his left hand. That finally got her attention, and she turned to swat at him with one massive paw. He let go of her tail and jumped backward, moving faster than should have been possible, and she just missed him. I could almost see her moment of indecision, as she tried to decide which of us she wanted to kill first.

“Sita, stop it!”

Jamaal’s voice was about the most welcome thing I’d ever heard. Sita gave a snarl that sounded almost surly. I didn’t want to attract her attention by moving while she was still in easy swatting range, but I didn’t
much like lying flat on my back on the floor, so I cautiously pushed myself up into a sitting position.

Between Sita and Logan, my vision was well and truly blocked, and I couldn’t see Jamaal.