King Among the Dead - Lauren Gilley Page 0,86
heard it only hours ago. Tony Castor.
She whipped her head around, and the room tilted, and blurred. She had to close her eyes, and listened to Castor chuckle. When she dared look, and slowly, by degrees, the room slid into focus.
It was circular, and colonnaded; an indoor pavilion of sorts, with its soaring, painted ceilings, and, beyond the columned arches, a hallway paneled in sleek marble, and set with portraits. Guards stood between the tall paintings, guns strapped to their chests. And in the center of the room: Castor and his conduit, Daniel. The floor was dark stone, and it was marked…
Marked with chalk, she saw, the nearest symbols hastily scrawled near her right foot. A circular sequence of symbols that made no sense to her; words scrawled hastily in Latin.
A pentagram at the center.
She gulped, and glanced toward Beck, who stared at Castor with glittering contempt.
Castor, who’d been dead earlier. Who Beck had shot through the heart.
He hadn’t changed clothes. Wore the same suit as before, minus his tie, his white shirt soaked through with dried blood.
He smiled, and his teeth were stained red; his face was flecked with it. “There he is. King Arthur. It’s been a long time, Augustus.”
Beck surged forward, straining at his bonds, tendons standing out sharp in his throat. But he couldn’t get loose, and subsided with a deep exhale that lifted the damp hair from his face.
“You’re still an excellent shot,” Castor continued, and unbuttoned his jacket. Beneath, the shirt was dark and crusted with dried blood. He unbuttoned it, and parted the halves…to reveal smooth, unblemished skin. No sign of a gunshot wound. “But something you failed to learn long ago: having the right sort of friends trumps having the right sort of skills every time.”
The conduit, Rose realized with a lurch. The shot had hit the mark, but the conduit had healed the damage. Had saved his life.
Beck rebelled against his bonds again with a curse.
Castor threw his head back and laughed. “God, you’re just the same. Just as stubborn and violent as ever. Did you learn anything from your brother? Can’t you understand you’ll never be anything, Arthur?”
His glittering gaze shifted to Rose, and she stilled, sucked in a quick breath. “I’m surprised to see you’re no longer working alone, though. You’ve made an…interesting…choice in a slaughter partner.”
He started toward her, slow and deliberate, and the revulsion that stirred in her belly threatened to make her sick.
Rose tried to shrink backward; her hands curled to fists…and she felt the cool, hard length of the knife strapped to her forearm. She and Beck both had one. Had secured them in the sheaths, with their straps, beneath the long sleeves of their shirts, before they collapsed into bed. Just in case, he’d said. It was something he did often: sleeping armed. If she could get to hers...
But she was tied tight, and couldn’t move; could only lift her chin in defiance and watch as Castor came to stand over her, reeking of dried blood.
He grinned, head tilting to the side. It was an agile, unnerving, predatory movement on Beck, but one of graceless indifference on this man. He wasn’t someone who ever had to do his own dirty work. He wasn’t looking for weak points, or giving her a proper scrutiny.
“Pretty,” he pronounced. “But young. Too young for this work, I would think.”
One of the death squad goons cracked an ugly laugh. “I didn’t even think he went for girls.”
“Nah,” another one chimed in, “remember those hookers?”
“Oh, yeah. He likes girls sometimes.”
“He likes killing,” another said, and all three of them cackled.
Castor snapped his fingers, and they all fell silent at once. He gave Rose one last, lingering look, and then moved to stand over Beck. “You’ve been busy, Becket. Very busy.”
At no point in the time she’d known him had Rose been afraid of Beck. She wasn’t afraid now – but the way he looked at Castor sent a chill rippling down her back. “Not busy enough,” he said, voice flat, stare vicious.
Castor’s smile was more of a grimace. “You don’t even realize how pathetic you are, do you?” He leaned down, so their faces were nearly level, and Beck’s whole body went rigid with tension as he strained at his bonds. “You can hate me all you want; you can be full of a breathtaking amount of rage. But you are one man, and I am this city.”
He straightened, and turned; walked back to the center of the room where