Deadly Descendant (19 page)

“My father sold my mother and me, and our lives went straight to hell. Neither one of us realized how good we’d had it at my father’s house. We’d been blissfully ignorant of what life was like for the average slave.

“I was sold again when I was ten, separated from my mother. I never saw her again. And I have no idea what happened to her. But I bet she died still making excuses for my father, for what he did to us. She never once blamed him for giving in to Matilda’s demands. And the stupid bitch felt
sorry
for Matilda!”

There was anger on Jamaal’s face—fury, even. But even more prominent was the deep, abiding hurt. He’d been betrayed by everyone he loved. Even his mother’s sympathy for Matilda was a betrayal, since it was Matilda who’d caused them to be sent away.

I had no idea what to say. Jamaal’s story made my own hellish childhood seem practically ideal. Was it any surprise that he and anger were such great friends? He’d probably have been a powder keg even without the addition of the death magic.

There was a long, awkward silence as I floundered for something to say. Maybe if it had been someone other than Jamaal sitting there, I might even have been able to find something. But let’s face it, he was capable of scrambling my wits at the best of times, and this wasn’t the best of times. Still, I had to say
something,
couldn’t just sit there like a moron.

“I can’t even imagine …” I started, but couldn’t figure out where to go from there.

What was the matter with me? I wasn’t the type to get all tongue-tied like this.

But you’re also not the type to have personal conversations,
I reminded myself. Steph had told me once that I tended to avoid intimacy, and I didn’t think she was off base.

I cleared my throat. “I can’t for the life of me think of anything to say,” I told him, deciding to settle for complete honesty. “Why did you decide to tell me this?”

His shoulders rose in a hint of a shrug. “I was wrong about you. I know you’re not an Olympian, and I know you didn’t kill Emmitt on purpose. I treated you like shit, and then I left you alone to face a madman with a pack of rabid jackals. I owe you more than a little. If you need any help tracking down your birth mother …”

The offer made my eyes sting even as my emotional barriers flung themselves into place. “You don’t have to do penance.”

“Maybe I’m just using your search as a way to relive my own, preferably with a different outcome.”

“I haven’t even decided for sure whether I want to go looking or not.”

Jamaal pushed himself to his feet, and I suspected he was giving me a condescending look, though I didn’t have the courage to check.

“Well, when you decide to go looking, let me know.”

He said that like he was sure he knew which decision I was going to make. I didn’t like him making assumptions and might have told him so, except he was already on his way to the door.

“By the way,” he said before he left, “you’re the only one I’ve told. Everyone else thinks I’m only about fifty. I don’t want sympathy or pity, and Anderson won’t be happy if he finds out how much I haven’t told him, so I hope you’ll keep a lid on it.”

I was too choked up—and too confused by everything I was feeling—to do more than nod.

Phoebe waited until it
was almost dark before she finally hauled her ass over to the mansion to talk to Anderson. He asked Blake and me to wait in his study, because he’d suggested to Phoebe on the phone that he would be meeting with her alone. I guess the rest of us hadn’t made a very favorable impression the last time she’d dropped by.

Blake and I had both sat in chairs against the wall on the near side of the room, where the open door would block Phoebe’s view until she was fully inside. The choice was not coincidental. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw us, but she wasn’t the only one with a surprise in store for her.

Phoebe’s goon—whom no one had ever bothered to introduce—we had expected, but Blake was obviously as surprised as I was when Cyrus followed the goon in.

Blake raised his eyebrows. “Who invited
you
?”

The words were confrontational, but his tone didn’t quite match.

Cyrus grinned. “I invited myself,” he said as Anderson closed the study door behind him. Cyrus’s grin faded. “Though perhaps that was a miscalculation.”

Phoebe turned to Anderson with a narrow-eyed stare that was probably meant to be intimidating. It’s hard for petite blondes to be intimidating.

“What are
they
doing here?” Phoebe asked with a curl of her lip. “You told me—”

“I know what I told you,” Anderson interrupted. “But we really need to sit down and have a serious conversation. One that involves you telling the truth.”

Phoebe bristled, and it looked for all the world like she was genuinely offended. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And if you haven’t invited me here to share intel, then this conversation is over.”

“Oh, we’ll share intel. Nikki, will you do the honors?” he asked without taking his eyes off of Phoebe. I hoped Blake was ready to step in at a moment’s notice, because the tension level in the room had risen to dangerous levels in no time flat. Phoebe was steaming, the goon looked ready to leap into action, and Cyrus looked tense and wary. Interestingly, his attention was mostly focused on Blake, and I had a feeling Cyrus knew exactly why Blake was in the room.

I grabbed the photos I’d printed of the three victims who’d been identified, then held them up one at
a time so that Phoebe could see them. I could tell she didn’t want to give up her staring match with Anderson, but curiosity got the better of her. She tried to hide her reaction, but the sudden tension in her shoulders told me that she grasped immediately the significance of the photos. And the sudden, sharp look Cyrus gave her suggested that Anderson had been right, and Cyrus didn’t know whatever it was his father was hiding.

“These are three of the four victims of ‘wild dog attacks,’” I said, sure I had their full attention. “You might notice there are certain similarities in their appearance.”

“As in, they all look kind of like Konstantin,” Anderson finished for me with more than a touch of steel in his voice.

Phoebe blinked a couple of times, and I could almost see the thoughts flitting through her head. Should she pretend ignorance? Stonewall? Make up a total fabrication that would throw us off the trail?

Apparently, she liked option D best: retreat.

“We’re done here,” she said, striding toward the door, although Anderson stood in her way.

Anderson didn’t move. Phoebe’s goon smiled, like he was really looking forward to a little action. He reached into his jacket, where, no doubt, he had a shoulder holster.

“Don’t!” Cyrus warned, reaching out to grab the goon’s arm, but he was too late.

Blake did his thing, and suddenly both men froze, their eyes locking on each other as their pupils went
dark and unfocused. Phoebe turned to bark an order at them, but then she saw the looks on their faces and quickly whirled on Blake.

“Stop that!” she commanded, but there was a hint of fear in her voice that stole all the power from her command.

Blake grinned like he was having a great time. “Make me.”

“Real mature,” I couldn’t help grumbling under my breath. So far, Blake was being relatively restrained. The lust was plain to see, but it wasn’t so strong that Cyrus and the goon couldn’t resist it. Yet. But resisting it took all of their concentration, making it impossible for them to make any hostile moves.

Phoebe turned back to Anderson, her eyes flashing with fury, which I suspected was a cover for more fear. I had yet to meet anyone who wasn’t freaked out by Blake’s power, and she was obviously no exception.

“Call him off!”

Anderson just laughed at her as he stepped around her and relieved her goon of his gun.

I could tell Phoebe was thinking of making a run for the door while Anderson was busy, so I moved over to block her way. It looked like she was considering going through me, but she thought better of it and settled for growling. “Get out of my way.”

“You came to us for help because you knew Konstantin was in trouble,” Anderson said to Phoebe’s back. “Helping Konstantin isn’t high on my list of priorities, but presumably, it is on yours. I’m willing to do everything in my power to stop this killer,
despite
the
fact that it will help Konstantin. But to do that, I need to know the truth. Even if Konstantin doesn’t want you to tell me, you know it’s in his best interests.”

For a moment, there was a hint of uncertainty on Phoebe’s face, and I thought Anderson might have found the perfect persuasion. Then the steel returned to her eyes.

Phoebe turned back toward Anderson, and there was not a drop of give in her voice. “I’ve told you everything I know, and I don’t appreciate the strong-arm tactics.”

Anderson laughed. “Lady, I haven’t even
begun
the strong-arm tactics yet.” The look on his face hardened. “I’ve got three questions for you,” he said, counting them off on his fingers. “One: who is the killer? Two: what does he have against Konstantin? And three: why did Konstantin
really
ask for our help?”

Phoebe sneered at him. “First: I don’t know. Second: I don’t know. And third: I already told you.”

Anderson clucked his tongue. “Are you sure that’s your best answer? Because things could get ugly here if you don’t start telling the truth.”

“Surely I must be mistaken,” Phoebe said, drawing herself up to her full height. “You couldn’t possibly be threatening me.”

He laughed again. “Really? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m doing.” The humor bled from his face, replaced by something cold and implacable. “You lied to me. Gave me incomplete information so that I’d throw my people into danger without knowing the risks. That pisses me off.”

“Konstantin—”

“Can come talk to me in person if my tactics bother him. Now, start talking, whether to save Konstantin’s ass or your own, I don’t care which.”

Phoebe’s face had paled, and though she was trying to put on a brave front, she wasn’t doing a very convincing job of it. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said, but it sounded more like a question than a statement.

Anderson bared his teeth in a savage grin. “Which would be more fun, do you think? Having a three-way with Cyrus and your talking ape?” We all looked at the goon, who was sweating with the effort of resisting Blake’s magic. Cyrus was sweating, too, and he managed to look furious and seriously horny at the same time. On some silent command from Blake, their attention turned from each other to Phoebe. “Or talking to the hand?”

Anderson held his palm up for display, and a strangled gasp of dismay left Phoebe’s throat. I guess she’d seen Anderson’s Hand of Doom in action before. I couldn’t blame her for wanting no part of it.

“Or you could just tell the truth,” Anderson continued with a careless shrug, lowering his hand. “Your choice.”

To say Phoebe didn’t like it was an understatement. Angry color rose to her pale cheeks, and she practically vibrated with fury. But she knew she’d been beat.

“You’ll pay for this someday,” she growled from between clenched teeth.

“Skip the whole saving-face thing, and just answer
my questions. Who the hell is this
Liberi
you’ve set us on?”

Phoebe’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “His name is Justin Kerner. He’s a descendant of Anubis, just like I told you.”

Anderson gave a little snort. “That was the one part of your story I believed. What does this Justin Kerner have against our friend Konstantin?”

Phoebe hesitated, reluctant to part with the truth, but all Anderson had to do was wiggle the fingers of his right hand to get her talking again.

“There’s a … bad seed. We believe it was handed down from the goddess Lyssa to one of her daughters.”

Anderson glanced over his shoulder at me. “The goddess of madness,” he explained, correctly guessing that the name was unfamiliar to me. “She’s often associated with rabies.” He turned back to Phoebe, who’d stalled out again.

“We think Lyssa infected the seed with her madness when she gave it to her daughter. Rumor has it that anyone who’s possessed that seed has eventually gone mad.”

“And what does any of this have to do with Konstantin?”

Phoebe swallowed hard and avoided all of our gazes. “We captured a
Liberi
who seemed to be insane. We didn’t know if it had something to do with Lyssa’s seed or if he was just a madman in his own right. We wanted to harvest the seed if it was any good, but we didn’t want to risk one of our own people in case it turned out the rumors were true.”

Anderson shook his head in disgust. “So you captured a non-Greek Descendant and forced him to kill your madman and take on the seed.”

Phoebe nodded. “We figured we’d see how Kerner reacted to the seed. If he stayed sane, then we’d harvest the seed for one of our own. If he didn’t …”

“Finish the story, Phoebe. What was your plan for if he went crazy, as he obviously did?”