As Nora paid, her phone buzzed. A text from Sam: Got one and he’s close, followed by an address in Brooklyn. She scanned the address twice, downed her espresso in one, and hurried outside.
“Brooklyn. We’ll get a cab. You’re paying.” Traveling through shadows would be quicker, but she knew she couldn’t take Selene with her. Although leaving her behind was tempting, she knew that this woman had quickly become part of her life.
Selene hailed a cab while Nora checked the text again. While she stood on the street and New York continued breathing and pulsing around her, Nora and Sam had a brief, hurried text conversation. Sam had found an address for a name on the short list of survivors from the ritual twelve years ago. Matt O’Hagan lived on a street she didn’t know in Brooklyn. Sam had dug up more info, too—unmarried, a teacher, O’Hagan had been unemployed for several years following some sort of accident. Sam was still digging to see what that might have entailed, but right then Nora didn’t care. She could question O’Hagan about her past, the ritual, and what had happened to her there. Indigo had seen to it that many other people who might have been able to reveal such information were now dead, so Nora was determined to make this attempt work.
“You might have to torture him,” Selene said, touching Nora’s arm and steering her toward a cab.
Nora bristled at the comment, shocked and afraid. Indigo did not. Deeper down, Damastes seemed to swell with delight at the idea.
“After everything that’s happened, maybe he’ll be ready to talk,” Nora said. She and Selene sat in the back of the cab, and Nora told the driver the address.
“More than likely ready to throw himself from a rooftop,” Selene said.
Nora leaned back and stared from the window. New York crept by outside as the cab stopped and started south along Park Avenue. The city had been her home for a long time, but being closed off inside a cab made the outside seem like more of an alien place than ever. People went about their business with no idea what dangers dwelled around them. They walked from light to shadow and back again, too wrapped up in their day-to-day lives to discern the greater, deeper events going on in the wider world. The city wore a mask, and they were constituent parts of it.
In truth, though, the true alienness existed inside this cab, not without.
“So tell me about them,” Nora said. “Twice they’ve come for me, now. Who are these slaughter nuns, and why do they want me dead?”
“It’s Damastes.”
“They think I serve him?”
Selene shrugged. “Whether they do or not, that’s not their concern. They want him dead and gone. Except … they want that for all the wrong reasons.”
“What do you mean?”
“The ‘slaughter nuns,’ as you call them, are an honorable group.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Their real name is the Androktasiai.”
Nora nodded. The nun had mentioned that name back in Florence, before trying to rip out her spine.
“They believe themselves to be inhabited by the spirits of the Androktasiai. In Greek mythology these were female spirits of honorable killing, such as on the battlefield. They have pride and commitment.”
“Great. More gods of murder and death. Why couldn’t I be possessed by the god of orgasm? Or ice cream?” Nora knew she wasn’t making sense. She felt hysteria lurking around the corner, and now that she was sitting and resting, tiredness allowed it closer. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the caffeine blasting through her system. But it wasn’t enough, and it would not last for long.
“In a way, they’re on your side,” Selene said. “They despise the Children of Phonos and what they’re trying to do.”
“Trying to kill me is a funny way of getting me on their side.”
“Well, their hatred of Damastes is strong.”
Nora sensed him shifting within her, and she glanced around the interior of the cab. The temptation to pick a shadow and flee into it was great. She could fall into darkness and seek somewhere safe. But where was safe? Home, stained with the blood of a dead slaughter nun? Sam’s hospital room?
Anywhere?
“So they want me dead because they think that’ll kill Damastes.”
“They think it’s worth a shot.”
“How do you know so much about them?” Nora asked, but she didn’t need telling, and Selene’s raised eyebrow said it all. Nora sighed. “So let me guess … they want you dead, too, because you left them.”
“Other way around. I left because they wanted me dead.”
“Huh?”
“Because I knew the truth. They know it, too, most of them, but they won’t admit it.”
“So what’s the truth?”
Selene eyed Nora for some time, and she’d never felt so analyzed before. It became uncomfortable, then almost painful, sitting beneath the gaze of this strange, deadly woman. The lure of the shadows had never felt stronger, yet Indigo held back. She knew that the truth was more important than anything else, and she was convinced that this woman carried it. To run now could only be folly.
“I can’t tell you until you’ve learned to control it.”
“You mean Damastes? It thinks you’re a bitch.”
“Because it’s scared of me.” Selene let that lie for a while, turning away from Nora and staring from the window.
“How long?” Nora asked the driver.
“Ten minutes. You want me to take a shortcut?”
“No. That’s fine.” Nora nursed her phone, willing Sam to text her more information about who or what she might be about to face. The phone remained silent. She was nervous but excited, a strange combination considering the things she’d seen and done over the past couple of days.
“So how do I control it?” she asked quietly, fearing a harsh reaction from the thing she carried. There was nothing. A silence, a stillness, that of something listening and watching. Nora couldn’t dare believe that Damastes was afraid of Selene, but he was certainly cautious and wary. Perhaps for now that was enough.
“There are ways,” Selene said. “I can tell you and show you. But it’ll need calmer surroundings than a cab in the middle of the city.”
“Like a Tibetan monastery?”
Selene threw Nora a confused look, and Nora smiled in return.
The cab pulled up outside a four-story town house, and while Selene paid the fare, Nora’s phone buzzed again. Sam.
Matt O’Hagan was accused of assaulting a pupil. His lawyer got him off.
Nora sighed heavily. “Lemme guess which lawyer,” she muttered, and remembered Bullington leaping for the window, accepting death rather that the anger of the Phonoi.
“Okay?” Selene had left the vehicle and was holding the door for Nora, and suddenly Indigo was there, cool and calm and ready to dig heavily into the past. At the warehouse she’d displayed her fury, a rage fed by the bloody, ritualistic murders of children. Here, now, her anger was deeper, but also more in control.
This was about knowledge ahead of revenge.