Damastes snorted but said nothing.
Keep your feelings to yourself, demon, or I’ll slam the lid down on you so hard, you’ll think you’re Quasimodo in the bell tower.
Mueller wheezed again. Indigo moved toward—
Light flickered off to the side. She saw it and dropped to the floor as Selene shouted, “Down!”
Sparks flew from the air above Indigo’s head, but it was more like the sputter of a short than a live wire. Only a few specks of light shot out. One struck her hand, and the speck burrowed into her shadow-clad flesh like a white-hot BB pellet. Then it vanished, leaving her with a shallow hole in her hand, roughly the size of a pinhead.
“Shit! Ow!” She stared at the hole in her hand. Powerful magic, if one spark of it could rip into her insubstantial form like that.… The full blast must have been horrific—and yet it hadn’t killed Mueller. Yet.
You think that’s powerful? Damastes chuckled in her head. I could show you power that—Indigo stuffed him back down in her mind, into his box, with a furious thought. She glanced over at Selene and then up at the ball of sparks, sputtering out now.
“Untriggered remnants of the trap,” Selene said. “Even that could have taken your head off if you walked into it, so let’s be a little more careful before rushing in where angels fear, and so on.”
“I’m not rushing. This bastard is one of the Phonoi’s inner circle. I have to wonder what he’s doing here now and in this state. Yeah, that trap would have taken my head off—my head, but it didn’t take his. That trap was meant for me, but it still packed a hell of a punch against him. So … maybe we can get some answers out of this piece of shit, since he was clearly up to something here.”
Selene shook her head. “And how could you trust a word he said?”
“I don’t think he’s a willing martyr to the cause. Maybe they had a falling out, or maybe he’s had a change of heart—though I doubt that—and he’s also going to die unless I help him. That’s a powerful incentive to get chatty.”
“He’s already dead. His body just doesn’t know it yet. You want information? That’s why we’re here. To look for it.”
When Nora didn’t answer, Selene threw up her hands. “Fine. I’ll look. You try to save a man who’d happily see you dead.”
“He’s tried that twice before and failed. You be careful. I doubt Rafe left only one trap around here.”
Shaking her head, Selene stalked back into the hall.
Nora shed her shadows as she crossed the short distance to Mueller and lowered herself beside him. He didn’t react at all to her emergence from the darkness, only held both blood-covered hands clutched to his chest. When she pulled them away, she saw where that divot of flesh had come from. The magic shrapnel had ripped apart his shirt and the skin beneath.
Nora peeled off the blood-and-gore-soaked tatters of Mueller’s shirt—or what remained of it. She shook her head. The wounds looked bad, and she was no doctor, but it seemed mostly surface damage. She could feel broken ribs, which probably explained the wheezing breaths. Deadly, if one pierced a lung, but he’d survived this long. He could make it a little longer.
She brought ice and wet towels from the kitchen. She cleaned him up, but he continued to lie still, eyes closed while he labored to breathe. She pressed the ice to his chest wound.
That snapped him out of his shock, his eyes rolling as he struggled to focus. “You … Shoulda died twelve years ago. Saved us … getting Bogdani on our backs. I shoulda guessed … Indigo … and the brat that wouldn’t die … were the same.”
“Yes, me. Never thought I’d get tired of seeing your kind surprised, but it’s really getting old. So let’s cut to the chase. You’re in rough shape. Broken ribs. Internal damage. If you get to a hospital in the next hour, you may live. If I walk out of here without the information I want, though, you’re not getting so much as a Band-Aid.”
A bitter, gasping laugh. “Is that how you think this works? I talk, a doctor fixes me up, and everything is hunky-dory? It’s not a lack of medical care that’s gonna kill me, girl. Might as well finish the job and then turn the gun on yourself. That’s all the mercy either of us is getting.”
“You set off a trap, which means you weren’t an invited guest. You came here to confront Rafe?”
Another snort of a laugh. “You’re such a child. Or an idiot. The only way to stop that bastard is…” Mueller trailed off, not quite ready to complete the evolution to traitor.
She leaned into his face and raised an eyebrow. “You want to stop him. How interesting. Did Graham Edwards convince you to take his side, once his kids went missing, leave the Children of Phonos? You see what the cult is doing, and you want it stopped.”
Now she got a long laugh, one that set Mueller gasping in pain.
“Ah, I see. You want Rafe stopped. Not the cult. You want the old order restored. Not Rafe in charge and taking it all for himself. Find information you can take to higher-ups. The European wing? Tell them Rafe has been a bad boy, and they’ll reward you … by getting rid of him? Open fresh new opportunities for your advancement?”
“I don’t give a shit about my advancement. There’s nothing to advance in. Not here. He’s ruined everything. A Johnny-come-lately who thought he could waltz in after the hard work was done and claim the rewards. His cousin brought him in afterward—the great sorcerer to fix our mess. And he lectured us like kids about how we’d screwed up the ritual, how we’d have to reclaim the god, how we’d have to atone, rebuild. He wasn’t even there! Instead he destroyed us. Most of the American wing wiped out, from the highest ranks to the newest warriors. Gone. Dead. And for what?”
The speech drained Mueller, and he slumped, eyelids flagging. Nora pressed the cold cloth to his face, thinking about the way lust for power rotted every organization at the core. The Children of Phonos had been undone by internecine fighting, betrayal after betrayal. The Androktasiai had suffered the same, with the added influence of Caedis. Now there was almost nothing left of either group.
“You’re not done yet,” Indigo said to Mueller. “What were you doing here? What’s Rafe up to? How were you supposed to reclaim the god?”
Mueller rolled his eyes. “You really are a child, aren’t you?”
“Am I?” she demanded, letting the shadows flow over her face, letting the presence of Damastes inside her consume the light around her body as she pushed her dark-wrapped fingers into his wound. “Child of something you should fear.”
“Christ,” he moaned as consciousness wavered. “I’d almost feel sorry for you if I didn’t know what’s inside of you. That’s what he wants. What he needs.…”
Indigo was about to reply when Selene walked in. Mueller frowned and wheezed. Nora saw a flicker in his eyes, as if he might be putting things together. Did he know Selene was an Androktasiai? He’d been inner circle, he must know about the slaughter nuns.