Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,240

a major inconvenience.

“Haven’t we been through this already?” his grandfather snapped.

“I can’t let you walk out that door, General.”

“And, as we’ve established, you can’t kill me. So, it appears we are at an impasse.”

“I don’t have to kill you to stop you.”

His grandfather snorted out a laugh, like this was the most ridiculous, childish thing Marcellus had ever said in his life.

And maybe it was. Maybe Marcellus was still a child. A child with a tender heart he’d inherited from his mother. A child who had never even been able to shoot down a bird. Maybe he would always be that child. And maybe that was exactly what the planet needed right now.

More tender hearts and less death.

More wisdom and less violence.

More people like his father and less people like his grandfather.

It was no longer just the blood of a three-year-old child and her innocent governess on the general’s hands. It was now the blood of all those people down there.

“I came here tonight to end you,” Marcellus went on, gaining certainty and clarity with every word. “I was convinced that was what my father would have wanted. What he would have done himself. But I was wrong. Julien Bonnefaçon joined the Vangarde to stop the violence. He never would have wanted this. He would have found another way. He would have made sure that you answered for your crimes. Every single one of them. Just as I will.”

For a flicker of an instant, Marcellus swore he saw something unfamiliar in his grandfather’s expression. Something akin to fear. Not the kind that comes when you face your own mortality, but the kind that comes when you face your own conscience.

“I don’t have time for this, Marcellus,” his grandfather snapped before turning and continuing toward the door.

With a calm, steady composure, Marcellus flicked the switch on the rayonette once more, toggling it back to paralyze mode. To non-lethal mode.

To the other way.

The one that didn’t avenge his father, but rather exonerated him.

Marcellus took aim at his grandfather’s left leg and squeezed the trigger. But just then, the whoosh of a rayonette pulse came from somewhere behind him, followed by the sound of flesh tearing. Marcellus cried out as the sting of a thousand lasers ripped through his shoulder.

He staggered back, dizzy from the pain. A dark veil curtained his vision. He squinted through it to see his grandfather rushing toward the door and fleeing into the hallway. Marcellus tried to take aim again, but he could barely raise his arm. The pain was excruciating. The rayonette clattered to the ground. Marcellus buckled over on the balcony and stifled another cry. When he glanced down at his right shoulder, he saw the fabric of his tuxedo jacket was charred and smoldering, the exposed skin underneath nothing more than an oozing blackened wound from what had to be the graze of a lethal pulse.

But who had fired it?

Struggling to stay upright, Marcellus spun around on the balcony and glanced over the railing, at the terrace. To where Inspecteur Chacal was raising his weapon again and aiming it straight at Marcellus’s head.

Marcellus barely had time to register the danger before a plume of green silk seemed to emerge from nowhere. It charged into the inspecteur with the force of a droid. The rayonette flew from his hand and clattered down the stairs. Chacal crashed onto his back with his assailant landing on top of him.

Marcellus’s heart stopped.

It was Chatine. The green dress was ragged and torn. Her face was streaked with blood. But she was unharmed. At least, for now.

She tried to scramble away from the fallen inspecteur. But he grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her back with a growl. She clawed at the ground, but it was no use. The inspecteur’s hold was too tight. And he was too angry.

“You filthy, good-for-nothing déchet!” he roared. His orange eye gleamed with fury as he withdrew the metal baton from his belt and raised it above her head.

Chatine twisted under his grasp, just managing to dodge the blow as she flipped onto her back.

Panicked, Marcellus hoisted up his rayonette, but his right arm screamed in pain. He switched to his other hand and fired but the pulse exploded against the base of a flower planter a few mètres away, nowhere even near his target.

Chatine scrabbled backward across the terrace. Chacal launched himself toward her, abandoning his baton and instead reaching for her neck with his bare hands. Marcellus watched in horror as he