Four
Ian
“Which is it you dislike, parties or champagne?” I asked, nodding pointedly at the virtually untouched flute in her right hand, as the party buzzed on without us.
Kori blinked, obviously struggling to refocus her attention, and twisted to face me on the ornate gold couch, both an expensive eyesore and an uncomfortable perch. “It’s parties with champagne. And food served in bites too small to taste.”
I laughed. “You’d rather drink from a trough and eat from a bucket?”
“I’d rather eat from a paper wrapper and drink from the fuckin’ bottle.”
“And your bottle of choice?” She had yet to say anything I’d expected to hear, and I couldn’t help wondering what would come out of her mouth if we got a chance to talk about something more meaningful than appetizers.
“Vodka.”
Any of the waiters could probably have gotten her whatever she wanted to drink, but I couldn’t really talk to her surrounded by two hundred other partygoers, and if I couldn’t talk to her, I couldn’t make her trust me.
“And since you used to live here, you’d probably know where Tower might keep a bottle of vodka…?”
“I might.”
“So maybe we could grab that and go for a walk on the grounds, free from the intrusion of pointless small talk as well as bite-size snacks.”
Kori hesitated, and for a second, I was certain that she didn’t want to be alone with me. Then she glanced at the guard stationed on either side of the front entrance. “They’re never going to let you wander around the property without an escort from security.”
“Aren’t you an escort from security?”
She huffed, and I wondered what I was missing. “It’s complicated. I protect you, but they protect Jake and his interests, which would not be served by giving an unbound man free access to the grounds. We could sneak out, but the patrol would probably find us.”
“Then it sounds to me like we have two options. We can ditch the party entirely and forage for a bottle of vodka elsewhere—”
“Jake would be pissed if we leave without telling him…” she said, and I nodded, not surprised.
“Or we could go upstairs, which—I’m willing to bet—isn’t being patrolled.”
She gave me a conspiratorial grin. “That’s because no one’s allowed upstairs. Jake’s kids are asleep in the family wing, so there’s a guard at the foot of both staircases.” She glanced over her shoulder, and I followed her gaze to the closer of two mirror-image staircases, where a huge man dressed all in black stood directly in front of the bottom step, arms clasped at his back. He was obviously armed, and if his expression was any indication, he suffered from a severe lack of personality.
“But you used to be a guard, so you could take one of them, couldn’t you?” I teased. “If I were to snatch a butter knife from the kitchen, you could bisect him from neck to groin in a single stroke, right?”
Her smile spread slowly, and her brown eyes practically sparkled. “Hell yeah. But Kenley will kill me if I get arterial spray on her dress.” She slid one hand over her own hip to where the dress ended above her crossed knees, and my gaze traced the path, before I realized what I was doing.
Oh, hell no.
Don’t believe a word they say. Don’t let your guard down. And do not make friends.
I’d heard it over and over, from Aaron. Hell, I’d said it over and over to myself. I couldn’t get personally involved. I couldn’t afford to see any of them as real people. They were a means to an end. Tools for me to use, like a wrench, or a hammer. Kori Daniels was the hammer I’d have to swing to smash through Jake Tower’s defenses and gain access to his prized possession, and you couldn’t be attracted to a hammer. Right?
But she’d have to think I liked her, or she’d never trust me. And if she didn’t trust me, she’d never let me near her sister. Kenley Daniels. The woman whose blood had the power to ruin lives—or end them.
“Okay, blood splatter is a problem,” I admitted. “But you’re a Traveler, right? So, you could just walk us both through a shadow down here and out of one up there, couldn’t you?” I glanced at what I could see of the second floor for emphasis.
Kori shook her head. “Infrared grid. There isn’t a true shadow in this entire house, except for the darkroom. None deep enough for me to step through, anyway.”
“What if there was?” I glanced around to make sure no one was listening, then I stood and started to tug her into the alcove she’d led me to minutes earlier. But she stiffened before I could touch her, and I realized I hadn’t imagined her pulling away from me before. But I didn’t understand it.
She was just a hammer to me, and I was just a job to her. An assignment. Korinne was the bait sent to reel me in, and for all I knew, she did this on a weekly basis. She flirted and cajoled, in a teasing, I-dare-you kind of way, clearly gauging my interest, and she probably knew far better than I did how to stay detached. How to attract without being attracted. How to engage without engaging your emotions, or even your desires.
So why the physical distance?
Was that part of Tower’s pitch? Show me the menu, but don’t let me order until I’d officially signed on? Or was Kori defining her own boundaries between work and play?
I was almost jealous of how well she played the game. And I was more determined than ever to keep in mind the fact that this was a game. A charade, of sorts. The woman, the party, the champagne and fancy clothes—they were nothing but a pretty mask covering an ugly beast that, behind its beguiling smile, waited to devour me.
“What if there was what?” she asked, standing without my help, and I had to drag my thoughts back on topic. Again.
“What if there was a true shadow upstairs? What if I could make a shadow? A real one? There’s no way we could both get past the guard, but if you distract him, I could sneak up and make a shadow for you to walk through. Then you could find that bottle, and we could both forget about the crowd for an hour or so.”
Because that part was real. She hated the party and the champagne, and the more comfortable—and less sober—I could make her, the better my chances of conning classified information from her. Like how well guarded her sister was at various times of the day. Or better yet, how to get into and out of Kenley’s apartment in the middle of the night.
Her pale brows rose in surprise. “You can black out infrared light?”
I leaned closer and put one finger over my lips. “Shh. I’m pretty sure that’s most of why Tower wants me. So yes, if you can get me upstairs, I can open a hole in the infrared grid, through which you could then join me.”
“A cynic and a rule breaker. I like it.” Her smile widened just a bit, and too late I realized I was returning it with one of my own. “And if we get caught?”
I shrugged. “I’ll say I was giving you a demonstration of my Skill, for recruiting purposes.” But she looked uncertain, so I tried again. “Tower told you to keep me happy, right?” No one had actually come out and said that, but it was no stretch of the imagination. Kori nodded, her smile fading fast. “So he can’t get mad at you for doing your job, can he?”
She frowned, like she wanted to argue, but wouldn’t. Or couldn’t.
I arched one brow at her. “Never mind. If you’re too scared…”
“Motherfucker…” she mumbled, rolling her eyes over my dare, and I couldn’t resist another smile. “Fine. But it’ll have to be the far staircase, and you’ll have to be quick. And make sure no one else is watching.”
“No problem.”
“You ready?” she asked, and I could tell from the curve at the edge of her mouth that she was getting into the spirit of the adventure.
“Almost.” I took the champagne flute from her hand and drained it with one gulp, then set it on the floor next to the wall. “What’s your plan?” I asked, glancing at the guard on the far side of the foyer. “Flirt? Take him a drink?”
She shook her head. “He wouldn’t buy either of those, coming from me. Don’t worry about it. Just wait until he steps away from the stairs, then haul ass. And be quiet.” Then she turned and headed across the foyer without so much as a glance back.
I tried not to watch her walk away, but failed miserably, and by the time I realized I was staring, she was in position. She walked right past the guard without a word, and I thought she’d changed her mind about the whole thing until he called out to her, though I couldn’t make out more than her name, from across the large foyer.
I started across the floor, my hands in my pockets, prepared to claim I was looking for the restroom if I were accosted. The guard in front of the near staircase eyed me as I passed him, but when I didn’t try to race up the stairs at his back, he turned to stare into the party again, obviously disappointed that his post wasn’t closer to the action.
There was a broad expanse of floor between the two sets of stairs, and in the center of that, opposite the double front doors, was a smaller set of doors leading to a courtyard in the middle of the house. Several couples milled outside, sitting on benches, drinking and nibbling from plates of those hors d’oeuvres Kori hated. I stood near the door, blocked from sight by the curve of stairs, listening to her conversation with the second guard. Which turned out to be less conversation than argument.
“Look who’s playin’ dress up…” the guard said, but his tone was neither friendly nor flirty. “I’ve never seen you in a dress before.”
“And you never will again, if I have any say.”
“You don’t, though, do you?” he said, and when she tried to keep walking, he grabbed her arm, hauling her close, his back to me and the staircase. And in that moment, I understood why she’d pulled away from me when I’d held her arm. “You don’t have a say in anything anymore, do you?”
“Fuck off, David,” Kori snapped, and I started to step in, thinking that her plan had gone awry. Then she jerked free from his grip and walked off. When he took several steps after her, I realized this was how she’d planned to distract him. Not by flirting, but by pissing him off. She’d known he’d follow. Maybe they had some kind of history. A grudge, or a former fling.
“I caught the show, you know,” the guard said softly, like he didn’t want anyone else to hear. Which meant he had no idea I was there.
I started to slip up the stairs, but then I noticed through the railing that Kori had gone still again, this time staring at the floor, fists clenched at her sides. “Shut up,” she whispered.
The guard stepped closer, so close his chest almost touched her back, and I could see her tense when he leaned down to whisper into her ear, words so soft I had to strain to hear them. “All this time, turning your nose up at everyone who wanted a taste, busting balls and splitting skulls with impunity because Tower liked you. But look at you now. My, how the mighty have fallen…”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a misquote,” she mumbled, as he circled her slowly, and I ducked behind the staircase again, out of sight, unless the guard on the other side of the foyer turned to look.
“Fits, though, doesn’t it. The taller the pedestal, the harder the bitch on it crashes to the ground. Do you want to know what we saw?”
“I want you to back the fuck off before I decide you’d look better with your nose on one side of your face.”
“That was some messed up shit, Kori,” he continued, like she hadn’t even spoken. “I mean, I wanted to see you taken down a peg or two, but that was hard to watch, even for me. How you doin’ in the aftermath? Need a shoulder to—”
The guard’s voice ended with the thunk of flesh against flesh, and I came forward until I could see him through the railing, lying flat on the floor, bleeding from his nose. Kori stood over him, feet spread in those stupid stilettos, bloodied fist still clenched from the blow.
She thought I was already upstairs—I could tell by the look of pure rage on her face, something she wouldn’t have intentionally shown a recruit. She didn’t know what I’d seen or what I’d heard. Hell, I didn’t know what I’d heard. But it made my stomach churn.
Aaron was right—they were monsters in human masks, and those masks were less convincing with every second I spent staring at them.
The guard coughed at Kori’s feet and started to sit up, but she planted one pointy heel in his crotch to stop him. I glanced across the foyer at the other guard to make sure he wasn’t watching, and when I saw that he was staring at the party still going strong in the main part of the house, out of sight from my current position, I jogged silently up the stairs—hunched over so she wouldn’t see me—and into the first open, dark room I saw.
Faintly, from below, I heard Kori’s heels click on marble, fading with each step as she headed for the front door.
For one long moment, I stood frozen, listening for anything that would indicate the west wing—the employee wing, where Kori’d once lived—was currently populated. But I heard nothing. So I pressed my back against the wall with the door still open to the hall and closed my eyes, slowly drawing darkness toward me from every shadowed corner and shaded nook in the room. I called to it, from every darkened crack beneath every door in the hall. And the shadows began to coalesce around my feet, curling around my shins, wisps of pure darkness rolling over me.
I lifted my hands, and the shadows rose with them, roiling around me, an inky oblivion, deeper and more satisfying than the shallow dark rendered useless by the infrared lighting grid I could feel overhead, blazing beyond the visible spectrum.
The darkness was cool and quiet. It was peace given form and function. I could feel it with every cell in my body, deep into the marrow of my bones. Into my soul. The darkness was mine to command.
Until half a minute later, when Kori Daniels stepped out of it and onto my right foot.
“Ow!” I laughed as the pointed toe of her dress shoe ground into my foot, and she stepped back immediately.
“Sorry!” she whispered, and I felt rather than saw her trip over her own shoes in the absolute darkness. I reached out for her instinctively, but let go as soon as she’d regained balance. “You did this?” she whispered again, from inches away, and I realized that if I couldn’t see her, she couldn’t see me.
“Yeah.”
“Holy shit, that’s incredible,” she breathed. Something moved between us, and it took me a moment to realize she was spreading her arms in the shadow I’d made, like a child in the rain. “It’s like finding a watering hole in the desert. A shadow on the sun.”
“Yeah, except I didn’t find it. I made it.” Couldn’t hurt to remind her how valuable I was.
I began to let the darkness go, a little at a time, and slowly light filtered in again from the hallway, feeling much brighter than it should have, after the absolute darkness. “That was impressive,” she said, when she could see well enough that her gaze met mine in the shadows. “No wonder Jake wants you.”
“He’s not the only one,” I said, and her brows rose in interest as she stepped back and glanced around at the unoccupied bedroom.
“Oh? Who else is courting you, Mr. Holt?”
“Ruben Cavazos, most notably,” I whispered, following her toward the door. “Along with a couple of the smaller syndicates on the West Coast.”
“Cavazos.” She practically spit his name, stepping out of the first of her shoes. “You don’t want anything to do with him.”
I laughed softly and tried not to notice the shape of her calves as she took off the second shoe. “I’d hardly expect you to endorse the competition.”
Kori straightened, holding both shoes by the straps in one hand. “He fucking shot me.”
“Cavazos shot you?” I could hear the surprise in my own voice.
Instead of answering, she pulled the left shoulder strap of her dress down to expose a puckered scar on her shoulder, still pink and fresh. “Two months ago.”
“What happened?”
“Clash of the titans.” Barefoot, she peeked into the hall, then gestured for me to follow her. “Everyone fights for one side or the other.”
“Are we sneaking?” I whispered, nodding at her shoes, wondering if I should take my own off.
“Nah. There’s no one in this wing. I just hate heels.”
I followed her down the hall and around the corner to the right. Three doors later, she turned left into a room with a billiard table in the center of the floor and a full-size bar along one wall. “Close the door,” she said over one shoulder as she dropped her shoes on the floor and headed for the bar.
I pushed the door closed softly, then crossed the room and took a seat on the center bar stool while she took up the position of bartender.
“What’ll it be?” She leaned forward with her elbows on the polished dark wood surface of the bar.
“Scotch?”
Kori rolled her eyes. “Of course you drink Scotch.”
“Are you calling me a stereotype?”
“Not yet, but if you don’t pull some surprises out of your hat soon, I suspect that moment is coming.” She dug beneath the bar and came up with a single short glass while I tried to decide how to respond to such a challenge. She wasn’t ready for any of my real surprises, and she never would be. Which was why I couldn’t get emotionally involved. Why I had to keep telling myself that she was just a hammer. A hammer with really nice legs, and eyes the color of good caramel, and…
Focus.
“Creating darkness wasn’t enough of a surprise?”
She laughed. “It was a start. Ice?”
“Four cubes.”
Kori scooped ice into the glass and set a half-full bottle of very expensive Scotch in front of me. I held it up, examining the label, reluctantly impressed with Tower’s taste. “How much trouble will we be in if we get caught?”
“We’re not going to get caught. If we hear footsteps, you make it dark, and I’ll make us disappear.” She produced a bottle of Grey Goose from beneath the counter, then circled the bar to sit on the stool next to mine. “There’s snack mix if you want, but you’re gonna have to serve yourself.”
“What are you going to do?”
“This.” She twisted the lid off the bottle and gulped from it once, twice, three times, without flinching.
“Rough night?” I asked, thinking about what I’d overheard.
“Any night that sees me in three-inch heels and sequins is a rough night.” She set the bottle on the bar, the cork stopper still clasped in one hand. “But I’ve certainly seen worse.”
I watched her, and after nearly a minute of staring off into space, she turned to face me. “What?”
“You drink like a man.”
She shrugged and glanced at the bottle I had yet to pour from. “One of us should.”
I wanted to ask, but at the same time, I didn’t want to know. Whatever the guard—David—had seen done to her was none of my business, and it wasn’t relevant to the job at hand. I already knew Tower was the scum of the earth, without having to hear the specifics.
And for no reason I could have explained, I didn’t want her to know I’d heard.
“So, what do you think so far?” She tilted her bottle up again as I poured from mine, then she wiped her mouth with the back of one hand. “Seen anything yet worth signing over your soul for?”
“Is that what I’d be signing away? My soul?” I happened to agree, but I was surprised to hear it from her.
Kori blinked, like she’d just realized she’d said too much—that pesky honesty getting in the way again. But she recovered quickly. “Nah. Just five years of your life. The standard term of service for most syndicates.”
“How close are you to the five-year mark?” I picked up my glass and sipped from it, savoring a liquor I could never personally afford, trying not to think about the fact that if I were alone with the other Daniels sister, this whole thing could be over in a matter of seconds. My objective hadn’t changed, but the strategy certainly had. Use one sister to get to the other. And to do that, I’d have to pretend to be recruitable.
“Five years came and went nearly a year and a half ago.” She twisted to show me her left arm, and the two interlocking chain links tattooed there. Marks of service. “One for each term.”
I’d already seen them, of course, and I already knew what they meant. She was six and a half years into a ten-year commitment to serve Jake Tower and his syndicate. Her oath had been sealed with two linking tattoos, each containing a tiny bit of his blood—a flesh binding. Until the day her commitment expired and her tattoos faded into the dull gray of dead marks, she would be compelled to follow his orders, or she would die fighting the compulsion.
Syndicate service was a miserable way to live. And often a miserable way to die. Only three kinds of people joined voluntarily: the ignorant, the ambitious and the desperate.
Which category did Kori fit into? Which would be most believable for me?
“You must like it here, then, if you signed on for another term,” I said, trying to embrace the part I had to play.
Kori blinked, then took another swig of vodka, straight. Then she shoved the corked lid back into the bottle and pushed the Goose away, like it might be to blame for whatever she was about to say. “This is my home.”
I frowned. It felt like she was starting a new conversation, rather than continuing the one already in progress. “No, this is your job.”
“You really don’t understand, do you?” she asked, and I let my frown deepen, so she would explain what I already knew, and I would listen and respond, and ask all the right questions, and with every minute that passed she would trust me a little more, because she would know I was no threat. She had all the power, because she had all the knowledge.
And because she thought she could cut my balls off with one hand while slicing my throat open with the other.
Kori exhaled slowly, and a brief glimpse of guilt flickered across her face, like she was already regretting the pitch she was about to throw at me. That told me she was neither ambitious nor ignorant—at least, not after more than six years of service, which came as no surprise, after what I’d overheard on the stairs.
And that only left desperate.
“When you sign on with a syndicate—any syndicate, not just this one—you’re not just taking a job, you’re becoming part of a community. Like an extended family. You’re getting job security, medical care, personal protection and virtually limitless resources. The syndicate isn’t just employment—it’s a way of life. A very stable, secure way of life.”
“Sounds awesome.” It also sounded like a very well-rehearsed speech. “What’s the catch? Is it all the following orders? Because honestly, that’s what I balk at.” To say the very, very least.
“There’s some of that, of course. But that’s not really so different from any other job, is it?” she asked, and I couldn’t help noting that now that I’d pointed out a flaw in the system, she was referring to it as a mere job again. “Any workplace is a hierarchy, right? There’s a CEO, management, and the rest of the employees. Everyone has a boss, except whoever’s at the top. That’s how we operate, too.”
“Yes, but in any other job, you can quit if you don’t like the orders.”
“That’s not true.” She smiled, like she’d caught me in a lie. “You can’t just quit military service if you don’t like the orders.”
“So, would you say service to the Tower syndicate is more like military service than like a civilian job?”
She had to think about that for a minute. “Yeah, I guess, only without the patriotism and gratitude from your fellow citizens. Large community. Great benefits. They even get chevrons for time in service.” She twisted to show me her arm again, to emphasize the parallel.
But I knew what she wasn’t saying—in the military, you can take the chevrons off at the end of the day, but the syndicate owns you for the life of the mark, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You’re never off the clock. And the word no has no meaning. I couldn’t understand why anyone would ever sign on for that.
“Okay, obviously following orders is what’s bothering you, and I can understand that. So why don’t we just lay the truth out on the table?”
“The truth?” I watched her in interest. The truth was a rarity in life in general and even more so in the syndicate. Only the fearless and the foolish wielded it so boldly, and I already knew Kori Daniels was no fool.
“Blinders are rare, and you’re the best I’ve ever seen. That makes you very valuable, and I’d bet my best knife that we’re not the only ones who’ve made you an offer?” Her sentence ended on a question, and I could only nod. “Right now, everyone’s playing nice and pulling out the best china because you’re being recruited. But if that doesn’t work, you’ll be hunted. And eventually you will be caught, and when that happens, you’ll be all out of choices. It’s a winner-takes-all kind of game.”
“I’m assuming there’s a silver lining to this cloud of doom?” The cloud that had been hanging over me since I was twelve years old, when my mother explained how the rarity and power of my Skill would shape the rest of my life. As a kid, I’d thought she was being paranoid. As an adult, I’d learned better.
“The silver lining is that at this stage in the game, you can still decide what mark you want to bear. Who you want to serve. Because you will wind up serving someone.” Kori shrugged and glanced longingly at the corked bottle of vodka. “Hell, I’m not sure how you went unnoticed as long as you did.”
Flying below the syndicates’ radar hadn’t been easy, and dipping beneath it again once this was over would no doubt be even harder.
“That’s a rather ominous bit of truth,” I said, committing to nothing.
Kori shrugged again. “It can’t be changed, so you might as well understand your options.”
“And those would be…?”
“The Tower syndicate, or some other, inferior organization.”
Or…door number three, the option she either didn’t know existed or didn’t believe possible: hide.
“And the others are inferior because…?”
“Because we have the best of everything.” She leaned closer, and I expected to smell vodka on her breath, but I couldn’t, and suddenly I wanted to kiss her, to see if I could taste it. Or maybe just to taste her.
I blinked in surprise at the thought, but Kori didn’t seem to notice. She was still talking.
“Jake wants you,” she said, staring straight into my eyes. “I mean he really fucking wants you, which gives you more power going into negotiations than most people have. You could get just about whatever you want out of him.”
Was it my imagination, or did she seem a little pleased at the idea of me taking Tower for all he was worth? More than pleased. She looked…excited. Her lips parted and her eyes shone with eagerness. She looked fierce, like the chain links on her arm could restrain her, but never truly tame her.
And as she watched me, probably waiting to see the gleam of greed that would tell her I was interested, I had a sudden, dangerous, treacherous thought. What would Tower give me, if I asked? Would he give me her?
I hated the thought as soon as I’d had it. People can’t be given as gifts. They shouldn’t be, anyway. Especially people like Kori Daniels, whose nature obviously couldn’t be suppressed, even by direct orders. Giving her to someone else would be like caging a wild bird, only to see the bright, beautiful feathers you loved fall out and fade at the bottom of the cage.
But with that one lecherous thought, and the momentary failure of my own moral compass, I suddenly understood why someone might join a syndicate. Someone who wanted or needed something badly. Something he had no chance of getting on his own.
Everyone has a price. Tower’s advantage in life was that he knew that and had no problem exploiting it.
“What is it you think I should ask for?” I turned my glass up and drank until the ice cubes bumped my lip, Scotch scorching its way down my throat, where I wished it could purge that lascivious thought from me. I couldn’t afford to want the bait dangled in front of me. “What could I possibly ask for that would make it easier to take orders?”
“An extra chain link.” She poured more Scotch into my glass, and I watched her light up with excitement over an idea I obviously didn’t understand. She was beautiful in that moment. Intense, and dangerous.
“If I don’t want the orders that come with signing on for five years, why the hell would I sign on for ten?”
“You wouldn’t.” Kori smiled and pushed the glass toward me. “You’d ask—no, you’d demand a second mark for free. A five-year commitment, with the seniority of a second-tier initiate. With two chain links, there are fewer people who can boss you around, thus fewer orders to follow.”
“Why stop there? Why not ask for three or four links?”
Kori’s expression darkened, and that spark in her eyes died. She leaned over the bar to grope for something and when she sat down again, she had a plastic jar of snack mix in one hand. “Seniority comes with responsibility. The more you ask him for, the more he’ll want from you in return.”
Things I wasn’t going to want to do, obviously.
“Two is the perfect number.” She unscrewed the lid on the snack mix and offered me the jar. “You have enough rank to avoid static from the bottom two rungs, but not enough seniority to obligate you to do…things above your pay grade.”
I took a handful of pretzels and peanuts. “Things like what?”
Kori just scrounged up a small smile and shook her head. “Even if I knew what my superiors’ duties were, I couldn’t tell you. Some things—many things—you can’t know until you bear his mark.”
I wanted to pursue the issue. I wanted to ask her if Tower had ever given her an order she didn’t want to follow. If he’d ever made her do something that made her skin crawl or rotted a bit of her soul. But picking at her emotional scabs—making her talk about things she obviously didn’t want to remember—seemed cruel. Too cruel, considering what else I had to do. I hadn’t come into Tower’s territory to be recruited by Kori Daniels.
I’d come to kill her sister.