Seeker

“You brought guns this time,” Quin noted as John approached. “You must be really scared of me.”

“Well, you ignored the knives on the Bridge,” he pointed out, trying to make light of the situation. He did not like pointing guns at her.

She had gotten to her feet and was standing perfectly still, her arms raised, whipsword on the ground by her feet. He watched her eyes move from him to each of the two men he’d brought with him. She looked much more alert than she had a few days ago on the Bridge. And more dangerous.

John’s entire left arm was aching from the blowtorch burn, which was heavily bandaged beneath his shirt. It was a reminder that he had better succeed this time. His grandfather had lost his grip on sanity and would likely lose control of his empire as well. He wouldn’t be able to help John much longer.

“You can’t seem to stay away from me,” Quin whispered when he’d come up beside her. Her words were meant to be cutting, but they still sounded intimate, and John could not stop himself from hoping that she would help him. Just once.

“I don’t want to stay away,” he whispered back. “I want to be together.”

On the ground nearby, the Young Dread was crouched over an old man who lay awkwardly on the forest floor. There were two other men on the ground as well, who looked as though they’d frozen in the middle of a strenuous activity. Both men wore hoods obscuring their faces, but they were breathing, very, very slowly. The old man, however, was as still as stone. The Young Dread was speaking to him in a language that might have been English, but if so, it was an English so old John could not follow the meaning.

Quin was wearing ill-fitting jeans held up with a large belt, and after shoving his gun back into his pocket, John was easily able to slip his hand in along her waistband, searching for the athame. It was difficult not to think about his hand on her skin, but he pushed such thoughts away—he must focus. When his fingers came in contact with something hard, something made of stone and nestled up against her right hip, his heart sped up. Quin turned toward him, and John’s men lifted their guns in warning.

“Don’t take it, John,” she said, her eyes pleading. “Don’t take it.” She put her hand on top of his, tried to push him away from the object beneath her jeans.

“You could make this so easy. Change your mind. Decide to help me.”Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“I promise I am helping you,” she told him. “Things will get worse after you have the athame. Believe me.”

“No, Quin. They’ll get better. Finally.”

Why couldn’t she understand? Her hand was on his, and he imagined raising it to his lips. If she would only help him, he would be free to kiss her … Instead he slid the object up, out of her trousers.

It was the gray stone of the athame, slightly warm from lying against her skin. In his excitement at holding the dagger in his hands, he shifted his balance away from her to study it. With two quick steps, she was behind him, placing John between her and the men with guns. In the moment it took him to turn to her, Quin had grabbed up her whipsword and was running for the trees.

“Dammit, Quin! Don’t do this again!”

He scrubbed at his face with his hands, torn. Then he gestured for his men to go after her. In an instant they were away. He wanted to go himself, but he doubted he could keep a clear head. Before arriving at the estate, he’d ordered his men to prevent Quin from escaping, even if it meant shooting her in a leg—and John would never be able to do that personally.

His eyes dropped to the object in his hand then, and he realized his mistake. He wasn’t holding the athame. This was something else. It had the shape of a short sword, with a handgrip and a flat, curving blade that was duller than a butter knife. It was like the athame, certainly, but not the same. A decoy? But if so, why not make something more exactly like the real thing? And this object was of the same stone as the athame, he was sure of that. So what was this item he was holding in his hands?

“Master, Master,” the Young Dread was murmuring nearby, still speaking to the old man in a low and steady voice, like a chant.

John stepped closer to the two other frozen men to get a better look. One, he now saw, was a Dread, the man they had called the Big Dread in his training days. The third man’s face was still hidden behind a hood, but when John stood directly over him, he found himself staring down at Briac Kincaid.

The surge of hatred was immediate and overpowering. At once, John felt himself back in the old barn, staring at the withered figure of his mother in the hospital bed, being taunted by Briac because he was not good enough, would never be good enough, to take his oath. Briac had treated John and Catherine like they were small and weak and easy to kill. But no more. John’s house was rising again, and it was time to put an end to Briac Kincaid.

He laid down Quin’s strange stone sword, and his fingers brushed over the gun in his pocket. But instead, his hand went to his whipsword. It had seemed only appropriate to bring it today for his return to the estate. With a graceful motion, he flicked it out.

Briac’s arms were frozen above his face, as though warding off a blow. John knelt and pushed them aside, but very slowly the arms moved back into place, and Briac’s eyes came into focus on John. He was waking up.

There were shouts from the woods and then a single gunshot. John looked up, panic rushing over him. His men were excellent marksmen, but still, they might make a mistake. Please don’t hurt her … He strained his eyes in the direction of the gunshot, but he could see nothing except trees from where he knelt. He would have to trust his men to follow orders.

With effort, he forced his attention back to the clearing, and he noticed that the Big Dread was moving his arms and legs now. The actions were both jerky and sluggish, with jumps and starts followed by tiny, slow movements. He too was waking up.

John felt his attention drawn to something in the Dread’s cloak, an object sticking out of an interior pocket. Its color and shape … John forgot both Briac and the gunshot as he crawled over to the Big Dread, reached into the man’s cloak, and wrapped his fingers around a cool stone handle.

It was another athame. He could feel the dials beneath his grasp as he pulled it from the Big Dread’s cloak. Briefly he took in its full shape in the daylight of the clearing … And then suddenly there was motion everywhere.

The Young Dread’s head whipped upward so she was staring at him and the athame in his hands. She’d been entirely willing to ignore him until the moment he touched the stone dagger.

Behind John, Briac was moving, rolling himself slowly out of reach. At the same instant, the Big Dread swung up to a kneeling position in one smooth movement, bringing himself face to face with John. The Big Dread froze again, just as quickly, but his whipsword was now in his frozen hand, its point nearly touching John’s chest and vibrating—a residual motion after being cracked out into a solid weapon.

The Dread himself looked completely inanimate again, as did Briac, and John thought it might take a few moments for them to move a second time. The Young Dread was still clutching the old man’s robes, cradling his upper body on her lap, but John sensed she was preparing to lunge at him. His only chance was to run now, without giving any warning.

Immediately John was on his feet, clutching the newfound athame in his left hand, his whipsword in his right, sprinting out of the clearing.

For a long while, he simply ran, not daring to look back. Then, in a section of the woods where the trees were more sparse, he caught up with his own men.

“Quin?” he said urgently. “Did you—”

Gauge shook his head. “It was just a shot to pin her down.” He nodded toward a wide tree trunk thirty yards ahead. John understood—Quin was cornered there. His panic eased.

He allowed his eyes to sweep over the forest behind him. There was no sign of anyone pursuing him. He looked back to the tree where Quin was hiding. No matter which athame he had, he would need a partner to teach him to use it. And he wanted Quin. Even if she’d never heard of an athame or Seekers, he would want Quin. Don’t turn your back on me, please, he implored her.

John’s other man, Paddon, was circling around through the woods to close in on her from the opposite side. Paddon gestured to Quin’s location and opened his mouth to speak.

Like magic, a knife handle appeared at the back of his neck. Paddon spit out a spray of blood and pitched forward.

John turned to see the Young Dread moving with long, steady strides through the trees, another knife already in her hand, ready to throw.

There was a rustle of leaves from beyond the wide tree trunk. Quin was not waiting to see who would be the Young Dread’s next target. She was flying deeper into the woods, heading away from them, in the direction of the barn on the cliff.

John took off after her. He could hear the Young Dread continuing behind him, but she hadn’t killed him yet. He chose to take that as a hopeful sign.