Unfortunately, he wasn’t too trusting, because every single weapon was chained to the wall as firmly as Jimmy was chained to the chair.
I went to work picking the lock on the chains with the silver knife. I guess it was good for something. If I could wake Jimmy up, and from the way his head lolled, I wasn’t certain I could, we were out of here. I didn’t bother to think of how we’d accomplish such a feat; I just knew that it had to be done. I’d carry him if I needed to.
Down twenty-odd flights? my mind mocked.
I ignored it. Sometimes you just had to.
The locks were trickier than any I’d picked before. They seemed ancient. Considering the Strega’s pedigree, they probably were.
Sweat began to run into my eyes. Impatiently I swiped it out and kept working. Urgency made my fingers fumble. I cut Jimmy, and he moaned.
My gaze went to his face, but he didn’t wake up. By the time I returned my attention to the cut, it had already healed.
Reaching out, I traced a finger down a puckered red line on his chest. “What did they do to you?” I whispered.
“Do not sound so sad, Miss Phoenix.” I froze as the voice swirled through the air all around me. “I can assure you that he liked it.”
I expected the room to be empty, the voice either in my head or spilling from an intercom. I’d discovered the room now locked from the outside, with Jimmy and I trapped in the Strega’s lair.
This place had been obscenely easy to infiltrate, which only meant one thing.
Sawyer had been right.
In the back of my mind, I’d known this was a trap, but I hadn’t cared. Still didn’t. I’d found Jimmy, which was all that mattered. Together we’d end this.
The owner of the voice stood just inside the closed door. Had he unlocked, opened, then shut it? I doubted that. My money was on his just appearing. Poof.
I didn’t ask who or what he was. If his Italian accent wasn’t a big enough hint, his olive-skinned, patrician face was. I’d seen the Strega before.
Slowly I stood, placing myself in front of Jimmy, the silver knife clutched in a hand gone slick with sweat. I doubted the weapon would do me much good against this… thing, but I couldn’t bring myself to put the blade aside. At least it was something.
“You arrived so very quickly.” His voice was mesmerizing—melodious and foreign. If he hadn’t been an evil half-demon bent on making the human race his plaything, I might have been charmed.
“I am impressed. I believed we would have to do more to coax you here. But then love—” His lips twisted with disdain. “It has always been the undoing of the human race.”
He’d used Jimmy as bait—no shock there. What I couldn’t figure out was how Jimmy had allowed himself to be used. No one had used Sanducci since he was eight.
“You have survived every test I’ve sent.”
My face must have shown my confusion because he laughed, the sound smooth, rich, and somehow wrong— joy sprouting from the joyless, amusement where amusement did not belong. “The berserker. The chindi. The coyotes.” He spread his hands. “I did not think they would win, but I had to try.”
I remained silent, trying to think, to come up with a plan, but having very little luck. It would be nice if Jimmy would wake up. Even nicer if his chains would just fall off like the Apostle Paul’s so he could do something other than die.
“I should have known from the moment I heard your name—Phoenix—that you would rise from the ashes of every calamity.”
The Strega looked me up and down. The touch of his gaze made me long for a hot shower and a gallon of bleach.
“I am sorry to say you will not rise from this,” he continued. “You have great powers, yes. But in the end, you are only human.”
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer. “We’ll win, and you know it.”
“Do I?” His lips curved; I caught just a hint of fang.
“Read the Bible lately?” I lifted a brow. “Oh, I forgot. Your hands probably get a little crispy whenever you touch one. I’ll give you the Cliffs Notes—good always triumphs in the end. Always.”
“Do you really think so? What is the point of a battle if the outcome is certain?” He lifted one shoulder, then lowered it. “Even if I lose in one of the years to come, the longer I win, the longer I stay out of that burning lake of fire I have heard so much about. So do not expect me to just give in.”
“Ditto,” I murmured.
He laughed again. “Delightful. I do enjoy guts, and not always for lunch.” The Strega contemplated me with an expression I couldn’t decipher, but I thought it might be admiration. “I’d like to make you an offer: Care to join my side?”
My answer was a snort. “I’m not that easy.”
“No?” His face turned cruel. “According to my son, you were the easiest he ever had.”
I jolted, both at the revelation, which really wasn’t much of one, and at the crude dismissal of one of my fondest memories.