CHAPTER 19
CURRAN DROVE BACK. I SAT IN THE PASSENGER SEAT, watching the brush roll by. Andrea and Jim had taken a different vehicle—he wanted to ask her some questions about the Keepers.
The magic had crashed shortly after we finished burying the bodies, and the steady hum of the gasoline engine set my teeth on edge. There was something mind-numbing about it; it conjured images of streets strewn with bodies. We had no idea where the second device would be activated. They could snuff out the entire Keep from four miles away. We’d never know what had hit us.
We’d stopped at a store on the way and I made four phone calls. One to Roman, to inform him that unless the volhvs delivered Adam Kamen by three o’clock to the Western Sizzlin’ I would crucify them at the Conclave. I wanted a shot at Kamen before the rest of Atlanta took it. The second call was to Evdokia to let her know what I was doing about the volhvs and that if she wanted to come and sit in on it, I wouldn’t mind. Next I called the Keep, to speak to Doolittle. The news was the same. No change. I thanked him and told him to send Derek with the volhv’s staff to the Western Sizzlin’. The fourth call was to Rene. She didn’t like what I had to say, and when she found out that the whole thing would be blown wide open at the Conclave, she liked it even less.
“When I hired you, I expected discretion.” The phone clicked and small noises muffled the sound—she’d put me on speaker.
“When you hired me, I expected honesty. You told me you had no idea what Kamen’s device did, but he’d tested the prototype in the forest. You told me he’d had no visitors, when one of the investors came to see him on multiple occasions.”
There was a small pause, and then Rene’s voice said, “What is she talking about?”
Henderson’s baritone answered. “Sorry, Captain.”
“‘Sorry,’ Sergeant?”
“It was above your pay grade. The orders came from above.”
Rene’s clipped voice snapped like a whip. “This conversation isn’t finished.” Then she spoke into the phone again. “Kate?”
“You have two choices: either you come to the Conclave and help, and we gloss over the fact that you’ve been guarding the creator of the Doomsday Device that’s about to murder everyone in the city limits, and then lost him; or you don’t show up, and I will tell it like it is.” That’s right, I’ll throw your ass right under the bus. Watch me.
“We’ll be there,” Rene ground out, and hung up.
Now we were back on the road, going toward the steak house, and I was fighting the phantom images of dead Julie flooding my mind.
Curran reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a roll of worn-out bills. He peeled a dollar from it and held it out to me.
“What for?”
“A dollar for your thoughts.”
“The usual price is a penny, not a dollar. Had I known how bad you were with money, I would’ve reconsidered this whole mating thing.”
“I didn’t want to go through all the haggling.” He held the dollar in front of me. “Look, here is a nice dollar. Tell me what’s brewing in your head.”
I snatched the dollar out of his fingers. It was old. The ink had faded so much, I could barely make it out.
“You took the money. Pay up.”
“All those people meant nothing to them. The Keepers killed a whole town for this bullshit promise of a better tomorrow. In a world without magic, only the deserving rise to the top? Really? Did they not read history books at all?”
“They’re fanatics,” Curran said. “It’s like expecting humanity from a falling rock. It’s not going to have a fit of compassion and not crack your skull open.”
“I can wrap my head around demons or rakshasas hating anything human, but the Keepers are people. A thug robs someone for money. A psychopath murders because he can’t help himself. They are perpetrating mass murder for no real immediate gain.” I stared at him helplessly. “How can you do this to your neighbors? They would have to murder millions of people and for what? It’s inhuman.”
“No, it’s human,” Curran said. “That’s the problem. People, especially unhappy people, want a cause.
They want something to belong to, to be a part of something great and bigger, and to be led. It’s easy to be a cog in a machine: you don’t have to think, you have no responsibility. You’re just following orders.
Doing as you’re told.”
“I can’t hate people that much. Don’t get me wrong. I want to murder every last Keeper I can find. But that’s not hate. That’s vengeance.”
Curran leaned over and squeezed my hand. “We’ll find them.”
We drove in silence.
“Why do you hold back?” he asked.
I glanced at him.
“You never let go,” he said. “You can do all this magic but you never use it.”
“Why don’t you murder every man that annoys you and rape every woman you find attractive? You can—you’re powerful enough.”
His face hardened. “First, it’s wrong. It’s the complete opposite of everything I stand for. The worst thing that ever happened to me happened because someone did exactly what you’ve described. The loups murdered my father, took my mother and my sister from me, ripped apart my family and my home. Why would I ever permit myself to become that? I believe in selfdiscipline and order, and I expect it from others just as I expect it from myself. Second, if I randomly murdered and violated people according to my whims, who the hell would follow me?”
“My father murdered my mother. She was no prize, but this doesn’t change things. Roland wanted to kill me. Because of him, my mother brainwashed Voron. Because of him I had no childhood and became this.”
“This what?”
“A trained killer. I like to fight, Curran. I need it. It’s a function of my existence, like breathing or eating. I am seriously fucked up. Every time I use Roland’s magic, I take a step closer to being him. Why would I ever permit myself to become that?”
“It’s not the same,” Curran said. “Loupism is loss of control. Practicing magic is honing your skills.”
“Taking over someone’s mind makes me feel like I’m swimming through a sewer. As I recall, the last time I did it, some overbearing alpha insisted on cramming the consequences of doing it down my throat.” Chew on that, why don’t you . . .
“I gave you a protector.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to do it again, unless I have to. Besides, it’s a limited magic. I can make the person perform basic physical tasks, but I can’t force him to tell me what he knows. If I can’t picture it, I can’t make him do it.”
“Does it get easier if you do it more often?”
“Yes. Saying a power word used to knock me out. Now it just hurts like hell. I can manage two or three in a row now, depending on how much magic I sink into them.” I leaned back against my seat. “I know what you’re driving at. Magic is just like anything else; you get better with practice.”
I closed my eyes. A vision of my aunt dead on the bloody snow flashed before me. “Before Erra died, she spoke to me. She said, ‘Live long enough to see everyone you love die. Suffer . . . like me.’ ”