The Veil (34 page)

Damon Mallory’s eyes narrowed. “Hardly,” he said, replacing the pocket watch in his suit pocket and seating himself down on the steps that led underneath the giant dome behind him. “Actually, my dear, I do have a few things I’d like to say to you before I release your friend and we get on with things.”

“Be my guest,” I told him, trying not to sound too relieved that apparently Mr. Stratton had been correct about Damon Mallory’s need to give speeches. I didn’t dare look at my watch, but I estimated at least two minutes must have elapsed between my jump from the roof and right now. That meant I had about four minutes before Gran’s boys showed up. I just had to keep him talking.

Four minutes. Suddenly that seemed like an interminably long time. I glanced around the park, not knowing what I was looking for, hoping I would find some kind of help. But the only people I could see were a group of school children on the far side of the park,
probably bound for the Exploratorium. The children were too far away to see us clearly; anyone who came closer would probably just assume we were putting on some sort of bizarre street performance. It was at least theoretically possible that the police might show up, in response to the open flame and the gagged-and-bound teenager, but I wasn’t actually sure what Damon Mallory would do in that instance, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

In any case, I couldn’t ask for any human’s help without dooming that person.

Damon Mallory settled himself more comfortably on the stairs. I stayed where I was, about ten paces in front of him. Nate, guarded by Oran, was several feet to my left, and the four guards were behind them. I couldn’t even look at the stake.

“There are two possible explanations for your being here right now,” Damon began in the same rich, authoritative voice he’d used before the Council earlier that day. “The first is that your protectors forbid you from trading yourself for Mr. Whitting, but you somehow managed to elude them and accept my invitation anyway.” He paused and gave me a deeply cynical look. “But given that you’re tainted with so much . . . humanity . . . I find that highly unlikely. The Strattons may be a bit dim, but I’m sure they’re more than capable of restraining a half blood human if they put their minds to it.”

“You can think whatever you like,” I informed him, crossing my arms over my chest.

“The second explanation for your presence,” he went on as though I hadn’t even spoken, “is that your protectors willingly allowed you to come, perhaps as part of some desperate plan of theirs to rescue your friend and recover you at the same time. That seems far more likely.”

I watched him sit there, grinning at his own brilliance. I never in my life had the urge to punch someone as much as I wanted to punch Damon Mallory right then.

“So?” I challenged him. “What does any of that matter?”

He continued to grin. “Don’t you see? Don’t you see what it means that they
allowed
you to come here? That all of them—the woman you believed for years to be your grandmother, your young Guardian who I’m sure by now you have developed some sort of sick attachment to—that all these people agreed to let you offer yourself up as bait? To put yourself at risk?”

I frowned, and this seemed to spur him onward. Three minutes now—it couldn’t be more than three minutes.

“Have you ever loved anyone Addison Prescott? And I don’t mean your puppy-dog feelings for your Guardian—I mean really, truly loved someone? A pity. If you had, then you’d understand that if any of those people truly loved you, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

I said nothing; I stared down at his shiny, tasseled shoes rather than look at his face. It was easier that way to picture his words simply washing over me, spilling away behind me. I wasn’t going to let Damon Mallory, or a single one of his words, inside of my head.

“It’s very important to me that you take this to heart in the few moments of life you have left. I also feel the need to tell you that, in spite of what you may have been told, I was not the one who killed your parents. You have Oran to thank for that, I’m afraid.”

I stiffened as unwelcome thoughts forced themselves into my mind. How had Oran done it? Had he set the house on fire, catching them unaware in their bed? Or had the fire just been a cover for what he did to them before . . .

Stop it
, I ordered myself sternly.
Don’t let his words into your head. Endure them for just a bit longer, and then you can forget everything you heard here today.

In spite of myself, I risked a glance over at Oran Tighe. He was taunting Nate by waving the silver knife in front of his face. The guard holding the torch was still struggling to keep the flame from engulfing the stake before it was time.

Damon Mallory coughed subtly to regain my full attention. “I deeply regret I couldn’t be there that night. I really do. Not only because I almost certainly would have noticed you were not with your parents that evening—as Oran did not, until much later, when you’d already vanished. I also would have had the opportunity to prolong the event a little bit. Oran is an efficient killer, but he has absolutely no flair.”

Oran grinned over at Damon. Did he think he had just been given a compliment?

Two minutes now—it couldn’t be much more than that.

“I’ve tried to picture your parents’ death in my head. Every moment, every detail. Even though I wasn’t present to witness the event with my own eyes, I always believed simply
knowing
they were dead would be a profoundly satisfying thing for me—can you imagine my disappointment at discovering I was wrong about that?”

My eyes snapped up to his. What was he saying? That he regretted sending Oran to kill my parents? He hadn’t said it in so many words, but somehow I knew Oran had done it on Mallory’s orders. Did he somehow regret giving that order?

Or was this more play acting, like the false remorse he had tried to conjure up this morning about bringing me before the Council? Once again, I was bothered by the familiar way he spoke about my parents—how had he known them?

His blue eyes gave me no answers; they smiled cruelly at me, now that they had me locked in their icy stare.

“Your parents got off far too easily. They died quickly without being taken to task for what they’d done. Imagine my despair when I realized I’d missed my chance to make them pay. I thought all was lost. But then—” his smile widened—“then I discovered
you
. Now I have my chance again, not just to kill you for what you are—an unnatural defilement of Annorasi blood—but to totally and utterly destroy the last living relative of Rosabel Stirling.”

Damon Mallory stood, still holding me absolutely still with his eyes.

“When you die, you’ll be in pain, of course. But I won’t let you go until I’m satisfied that there is not one bit of you left that does not profoundly regret the day your parents met. And we’ll start with this—why do I care so much to point out to you that you’re here because the people you care for the most
let you come to me
? Because I want you to think about that at the very last moment of your life—I want you to think about how none of those people have ever,
could ever
, care about you in the way you hope for, because you
are not fully one of them
.”

I ripped my eyes away from his, but it was already too late. I no longer cared how much time I had before Gran’s boys showed up. I no longer cared what the odds were that they’d be able to rescue me, or Nate. I was numb.

And he wasn’t finished.

“Don’t you see? It would have been better for everyone if you’d never existed at all. Do you really believe even your greatest protectors won’t breathe a sigh of relief after they find out I’ve killed you? They will be relieved, I promise you that. It’ll be better for everyone when you are gone.”

A muffled yell burst from Nate. For a moment, Damon Mallory’s words were gone from my head, replaced with the horrific thought that Oran Tighe had gone too far with his knife.

Nate
, a voice inside my head reminded me.
You came here for Nate.

I looked up at Damon Mallory. “Let my friend go. You said you would.”

“So I did.” Damon Mallory crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m wondering if I shouldn’t rethink that now.”

“We had a deal,” I protested. “We made a trade, remember?”

“I don’t recall us shaking hands on it, do you?”

Don’t let him touch you!
Luc’s voice was shouting in my head.

Luc had not had time to explain what he meant by that, but even in my head I could hear the urgency in his voice. It scared me, but not nearly as much as the idea that Nate was running out of time.

I had lost track of how long I had before Gran’s boys showed up. Even a minute would be too much now—a few more seconds, and Damon would give Oran a signal, and Oran, efficient killer that he was, would . . .

I walked forward, holding out my right hand to Damon Mallory. “We’ll shake on it now,” I offered. “Me for him. Deal?”

Damon Mallory looked down at my outstretched hand and slowly reached out to extend his own.

Luc’s voice screamed in my head as my fingers closed around Damon Mallory’s cold, clammy palm.
Don’t let him touch you!

Pain, such as I had never felt in my life, engulfed my entire body. I fell to my knees and tried to wrench my hand away, but Damon Mallory closed his grip on my fingers and brought his left hand over his right, sending yet another wave of agony down my arm. The pain went through me like a lightening bolt, then looped back around and shot through me once again, circling around and around me, gaining strength each time it left me and returned.

I heard myself scream as I fell forward onto the ground, scraping my front against the concrete. My right hand was still clasped between Damon Mallory’s palms, and he dragged me over until I was right in front of Nate. I could hear him screaming too, still bound in the Annorasi rope, and I prayed suddenly he was screaming for me and not because Damon Mallory had set Oran free with his knife.

Abruptly, the pain stopped.

I knew only that Damon Mallory must have dropped my hand, because suddenly I was face down on the ground. I raised my head up, wincing at every small movement, and saw a flurry of activity out of the corner of one eye.

Gran’s boys.

Damon Mallory had seen them coming and was somehow already over on the opposite side of the rotunda. Oran Tighe stood midway between Damon and me, fingering his knife and looking longingly over his shoulder at Nate, clearly wondering if he had time to finish the job before Gran’s boys could nab him. Grinning, he started back toward us at a run.

I glanced up at Nate; his eyes were huge behind the ropes that bound him. He couldn’t move, could only watch Oran come toward him, knife at the ready.

“No!” I heard myself scream.

Painfully, so painfully that I groaned audibly and felt a wave of dizziness pass over my head, I picked myself up off the floor and lunged at Nate. He fell backward like a marble column, arms bound at his sides, unable to bend and break his fall. His head hit the ground with a painful-sounding smack, and I threw myself over him, putting myself between him and Oran.

I closed my eyes, expecting to feel Oran collide into us at any moment.

But it never happened.

I counted three seconds before opening my eyes and risking a glance behind me. Luc stood over Oran, who was splayed out beneath him on the ground. Three of the four gray-suited guards were closing in on Luc; the fourth was over by Damon Mallory, fighting off Gran’s boys.

Two more figures dropped out of the sky, each landing on one of the guards around Luc. The guard Gran hit lay perfectly still beneath her feet, and Mr. Stratton made short work of his with a well-aimed punch. Luc stepped off of Oran and a flash of silver hurtled from his palm, catching a third guard in the chest and knocking him to the ground.

When Luc turned around, Oran had already gotten to his feet and flown to the other side of the rotunda, knocking one of
Gran’s boys aside. He and Damon Mallory jumped up in unison and soared upward, disappearing into the clouds, leaving the fourth guard to the mercies of Gran’s boys.

Luc peeled me off of Nate and hugged me so tightly my battered muscles screamed. But I didn’t care. I threw my arms around him and buried my face in his neck. After a moment he pulled my face up to his and kissed my forehead, my cheeks, and, finally, my lips.

“I’m never letting you go again,” he vowed, pulling me close again. “Never—not for a single minute, no matter what you say.”

“Fine with me.” I nestled my head into his shoulder and tucked both of my arms securely around the middle of his back. “I’ll just stay right here, if that’s okay with you.”

“Perfect.”

A second later though, I raised my head up to look over his shoulder to where Mr. Stratton was stamping out the flames from the torch one of the guards had dropped. When he was done, he went over to Gran, who was kneeling beside Nate.

“Is he okay?” I asked. I could hear frustrated mumbling sounds coming from him, so I knew he must be.

“He’s fine,” Gran assured me. “Trussed up better than a ham, but fine.”

After a bit of a struggle, Mr. Stratton managed to untie the ropes around Nate’s torso, allowing him to sit up. Gran ripped away the silver material covering his mouth.

“Wow,” Nate said, stretching the muscles in his jaw and making strange, contorted facial expressions as he checked to see if his mouth still worked. He looked around at all of us, doing a double take as Gran’s ten warriors lined up behind her. “Someone has
got
to explain all of this to me.”

——

“A
DDY!
”

I gasped. Only a last-second grab at the second-story railing kept me from losing my balance and falling headfirst into the living room. “Gran!” I protested, watching the long string of green tinsel—which I’d been attempting to loop decoratively around the railing—flutter to the ground at her feet.

Gran, hands on hips, glared up at me sternly. “Shouldn’t you have finished that by now? They’ll be here any minute!”