The Fire King Page 3

  The desert, he decided, staring into her dark eyes, drawing in her scent until his chest pressed hard against the restraints—holding her within him, holding her until he thought he might choke without air. He exhaled slowly, still trying to possess that sunlit scent, and her mouth tensed, as if in pain.

  The shape-shifter spoke, a melodic one-sided conversation that was soft and cold, and infinitely menacing. The human flashed her a hard, angry look; brazen, defiant, without a shred of fear. Startling, utterly unexpected. Karr had never seen a human look at a shape-shifter as an equal. Not with such confidence, or disregard.

  The human muttered several sharp words filled with scathing disdain, and the shape-shifter tilted her head, a dangerous smile touching the corner of her mouth. Karr tensed, certain he was about to bear witness to death, and pain, and humiliation. No shape-shifter would tolerate such boldness from a human. The woman would not be suffered to live.

  Do not, whispered the cold part of his mind. Do not care. Do not involve yourself. But the shape-shifter’s hand flexed, and he remembered screams—screams in the darkness where he had hidden the cubs, and the blood glistening on claws, on the mouths of the soldiers standing over him—and he tugged hard on his restraints. So hard the iron bit into his flesh.

  The human woman gave him a sharp look, anger still bright in her eyes. No fear. Not even in her scent. He could not tear his gaze from her, not until he felt the shape-shifter throw him a cold, careless glance. It was a fleeting look that lingered and then sharpened. She gazed between him and the human woman, and her smile grew even deadlier.

  It was too much. Karr threw himself against his bonds, fighting them in silence. The iron did not yield. Golden light spilled over his skin. Soft scales rippled, edged with fur, and the tender flesh of his wounds, incurred while breaking the leather restraints in the wagon, split open.

  It hurt, but he did not stop. Not when the shape-shifter growled, baring her sharp teeth, dropping into a half crouch. Her musky scent grew stronger, bitter. Golden light trickled from her single eye.

  The human woman stepped between them. She moved fast, with determination, and stood with her back to Karr, facing the shape-shifter. She did not say a word, but instead placed one hand against the shifter-woman’s shoulder, pushing her back. Firm, unflinching. Karr stopped straining against his bonds. Caught in the moment. Staring.

  No one spoke. The human did not back down. Not even when the shifter-woman dragged one claw down her slender arm, looking past her, directly into Karr’s eyes. Karr kept himself very still, though the tension that rode through him could not be hidden; scales continued rippling over his skin and his muscles bunched against the iron. It felt good. So good he did not want to stop, even if it killed him.

  The human glanced over her shoulder, meeting his gaze, and something wild fluttered through her expression: a fracture, small and pained. Without a word, she began shoving the shape-shifter toward the door. With urgency, determination. Anger.

  He expected the shifter-woman to strike back, but instead she yielded gracefully, casting Karr a cold look that made his hackles burn. Whatever this was—this human, this shifter, this power struggle between them—he was still a prisoner. He was still her prisoner. And she wanted him to know it.

  The shape-shifter stepped backward, followed by the human. Karr watched as much as he could, but the hood limited his peripheral vision. He heard the door open and close. Silence followed, though he could still smell warm sunlight. He strained for that scent. He listened painfully as feet scuffed the floor.

  The human woman moved back into sight. Her cheeks were red, her dark eyes narrowed, her breathing just slightly rushed. But when she looked into his eyes again, there was still no fear.

  Bold, striking. Few had ever fascinated Karr, but this woman did. He wanted to know what made her strong enough to compel a shape-shifter’s deference—and how she could look him in the eye without hesitation. When no one else ever had.

  “Hello,” she said.

  Karr blinked, staring.

  “Hello,” said the woman again. It was not his imagination. Since his resurrection, he had not heard one word he understood. Not one. His brief attempts to communicate had brought him nothing but confused looks. Captivity was bad enough, but to be isolated in language was a burden he had wondered seriously whether he would be able to bear. Pain could be controlled. So could fear. But words, even the hostile words of an enemy, were still an anchor, a connection—the only thing, at times, that separated an animal from a man.

  “Hello,” he said, his voice muffled by the mask. His throat hurt. So did his heart.

  The woman drew in a slow, deep breath and nodded to herself, her gaze solemn and thoughtful. She began to crouch, must have realized that would take her from his line of sight, and moved even closer, up his body, until she stood by his shoulder. Karr could see her better there. He looked straight up at her—and realized, stunned, that she was missing her right arm. He had not noticed before. She had kept that side of her body turned from him. But it was clear now; her sleeve was empty.

  Karr looked back at the woman’s face, and found her staring at him with a steely directness that sent a thrill of unease and confusion down his spine. Her scent altered, too. He tasted more of her anger.

  “I would like to know your name,” she said, each word spoken slowly, carefully, her accent unlike any he had ever heard.

  He almost told her. He came so close. It shocked him, the ease with which she made him want to talk. He had never given in so easily. Never.

  A trick, he told himself. Mind games. They have known how to speak to you all this time, and now they put on a performance. They give you a woman who is no threat, who fascinates you. Who can talk to you. Lull you.

  Bitter disappointment crawled up his throat. It was true. It had to be. It had been tried before in the first years of the war, but the human women tossed at his feet had been frail, timid creatures, shivering in his presence like newborn cubs. There was no fire in them. No strength and intelligence blazing in their eyes. Not a shred of defiance. They were nothing like this woman who stood above him.

  She is not false, whispered his instincts. Look into her eyes. She has never been broken.

  Neither had Karr. But he found himself close, in that moment. He wanted to be lulled. He wanted to be spoken to, so badly he could taste it. He was tired of fighting, then and now. He had been so disturbed by his own insanity that he had sought relief at the end of a sword; he had allowed himself to be buried alive for little more than the knowledge that he would never again be allowed to hurt the people he loved.

  Karr said nothing. The woman tilted her head, frowning, and sat beside him, so close that he felt the heat of her body against his shoulder. Her scent, so full of sunlight, filled him with another kind of warmth that he refused to dwell on.

  And yet … She rubbed her chin, silver and turquoise flashing along her wrist, and he found it impossible to look away from her face. He told himself it was for his own good, that he had to study her—divine her weaknesses, if he could—but the simple truth was that she intrigued him. And if he was going to die in this place, then at least it would be from torture and not boredom.

  “My name is Soria,” she said.

  And the rest was silence.

  The next time you see Roland, Soria told herself, ten minutes later, you are going to kick his ass.

  She already had it planned—a knee to his nuts and, once he was down, another good stomp. She was going to dance a goddamn jig on his testicles. Followed by a verbal browbeating that she hoped made his ears bleed.

  Soria managed to hold it together until she left the holding cell. For years she had been good at compartmentalizing her emotions, staying cool and calm, focused under any condition: bullets, fire, stampede. The past year had frayed her edges, but seeing that man—that giant of a man strapped inside something that resembled a medieval torture device—sent her back to fundamentals.

  Get the job
done. Be calm. Focus.

  Then freak.

  Serena McGillis waited in the hall. She had already slipped her sunglasses back on, which so far seemed to be her only weakness: a reluctance to show her eyes. One eye was missing, the other golden and inhuman. Soria understood, but that was the only thing about Serena that made sense.

  The shape-shifter was tall and sinewy, a cold blonde beauty who had to be in her fifties, though she hardly looked it. Her daughter, Iris, was married to one of Soria’s friends and colleagues. Everything else was a mystery.

  Soria had never met Serena before this morning. She was not a member of Dirk & Steele; she belonged to another organization, one that until recently had gone unknown, unnoticed, and well under the radar. Serena was not one of the bad guys, so the others said, but she was not so good, either. Unnamed, relegated to shadows, she and her group took a pragmatic approach to problems—and they were particularly handy for fighting and undermining yet another organization that was, in fact, evil.

  The Consortium: a criminal network made up of psychics engaging in everything from organized crime to human slavery and genetic experimentation. Because of them, Soria’s friends had been kidnapped and tortured. A lab in the Congo had recently been discovered full of human women impregnated with the sperm of captured shape-shifters. Serena’s own daughter had been targeted for capture and to become one of their breeders. Soria found the whole situation horrifying.

  But this … this was right up there. Worse, it was her own people involved.

  “You are so full of shit,” she said to Serena, who had seemed more bothered by the lamb chop served at breakfast than the wounded man imprisoned in the room behind her. Even now the shape-shifter showed nothing except a faint smile, more bitter than amused.

  Serena replied, “If you think I overstated the danger, you are mistaken. He has already killed ten of my men. He would kill you, given the chance. Those restraints are the only thing that can contain him.”

  “Funny you had them,” Soria replied. “You do this often?”

  Serena’s mouth tightened. “This, or death. For one such as him, there is nothing between.”

  Soria twisted her empty sleeve. Those golden eyes glimpsed inside that iron hood continued to burn through her; the entire memory of the man’s presence filled her with both unease and curiosity. She had felt something in his brain, felt his language move through her as though it could be held and tasted. It had taken her longer than usual to process that slow, steady feed, made her feel like a kid again, her brain thick with words, full and turgid as a water balloon just waiting to pop.

  Ghost fingers tingled. Soria gritted her teeth. “Then why am I here? Why bring me all this way to talk to a shape-shifter you think is too dangerous to live?”

  “What did Roland tell you?”

  “Not enough. Certainly not why we would partner up with people like you.”

  “And yet, you came.”

  Like a fool, thought Soria, hearing the rich layer of contempt in Serena’s voice.

  She let it slide, kept her gaze steady and cool. For ten years she had stood toe-to-toe with kidnappers, hostage-takers, murderers, presidents, military commanders, every manner of man or woman, good, bad, and downright disgusting. All of them had thought they were more dangerous than Soria, and all of them were absolutely correct. She had few skills as a fighter.

  Yet, she controlled words. She was a link that bound strangers. She was the one who communicated needs and desires between parties. And that was a power all its own.

  Soria stared at her reflection in Serena’s sunglasses. “I came because a friend said I was needed.”

  “You are a convenience,” the shape-shifter replied dismissively, and brushed past to walk down the hall.

  Soria followed, dogging the woman’s heels, refusing to be intimidated by the lethal flex of the woman’s right hand, which remained more leopard than human. Dark curved claws extended from the tips of Serena’s fingers, and she moved like a cat—aggressively graceful, hips rolling. Soria wanted to plant a boot up her ass.

  The hall was short and poorly lit. Part of a maze. Soria had gotten off the plane in Beijing, China, only to be swept up by a portly little man who shuttled her north out of the city, driving through the entire night. Big, comfortable backseat, with a pillow and blanket. Soria had fallen asleep. Late this morning she had opened her eyes and found herself in a dusty village surrounded by the remains of an ancient crumbling wall. The streets were twisting, narrow, made of dirt; and the homes, built seamlessly together, had been crafted of stone and wood and clay. It looked remote, felt remote, and the children who lingered around the car when she stumbled out, bleary-eyed, squealed with delight when she spoke to them in their native language.

  Khalkha dialect. Mongolian. Not quite to the border between that country and China, but close enough to taste grit in the air from the Gobi Desert. One of the boys, no older than eight, had asked immediately if she’d come about the bleeding soldiers. This question invited a hard shove from one of the older girls, who called him stupid and said that Soria surely had arrived to see the giant white man who had been hauled away from the military truck, ass first, unconscious.

  Well, Soria had just seen the giant white man—nearly seven feet of him, if she had to guess. All muscle, all frustration, and definitely not human. She could believe that he had killed ten men. She would have believed he had killed twenty, with his bare hands, if Serena had said so.

  Hello, he had rasped, from behind his mask. Hello, in a language that was utterly unfamiliar to Soria, in a voice that sounded like the very definition of pain.

  It had been so startling to hear him. Soria still felt chills, though she was not certain why the memory of his voice haunted her. Perhaps because it was so very human. Perhaps because hearing him speak made him real to her in ways that merely looking at him had not.

  He was real to you before, she chided herself. He was real.

  Yet it was different, hearing him. Without a face to be an anchor, a body was only a fragment, an echo of a person’s existence. A body said too little about personality, or character. And the shape-shifter’s eyes had barely been visible inside the shadows of the hood. But his voice …

  Soria tugged at her empty sleeve, breathing through gritted teeth. Enough, she thought angrily. Voices mean nothing. You have to go deeper.

  If she was allowed to. This whole operation stank.

  The shape-shifter led Soria up a narrow flight of stairs, directly into another small room made of stone. Unlike the cell, this was aboveground. A sliver of light pushed through a small window set near the ceiling. The air smelled musty, and everything was covered in a thin layer of dust. Northern China suffered from sandstorms blown in from the Gobi Desert. Years ago, Soria had spent time in Beijing, helping another agent investigate a kidnapping. She still remembered how impossible it had been to keep things clean inside the little apartment they shared.

  A slender young Chinese man sat at a long wooden table watching a row of security monitors. Soria saw the door of the room she had just left, and on another screen, the captive shape-shifter. She leaned in, studying him, seeing him remotely—bound and hooded in iron which made him seem even more alien and strange. Far more so than she had felt sitting beside him on the floor, wondering what the hell she was supposed to do.

  Serena’s hand was human again. The shape-shifter placed it on the young Chinese man’s shoulder as she bent to whisper in his ear. His expression never changed, but a faint flush stained his cheeks as he dragged a laptop close and typed on the keyboard. The screen darkened, revealing a frozen image from what appeared to be another security tape.

  Not security, Soria realized, noting the eye-level angle of the picture, and the presence of color. A handheld camera.

  “Watch carefully,” Serena said, as the young man hit another key.

  No sound. Just film. Scattered men were holding flashlights, moving slowly down a long, rocky tunnel that gave the impre
ssion of being underground. It was hard to make out details. Images kept jumping. Soria felt as though she were watching some amateurish indie flick, a Blair Witch wannabe. It nauseated her, and she leaned back, putting some distance between herself and the screen.

  The men entered a cavern. There was not much to see, except far on the right she glimpsed a pillar. The camera jerked in that direction and then steadied long enough to see that there were two pillars, rough and squat, framing what might have been a door—but that was now a cracked heap of large rock. Beyond, lights flashed.

  The camera bounced closer. Soria glimpsed Serena in the shadows, leaning over an enormous stone structure, long and waist-high. There was nothing fancy about it. To Soria, it appeared as though it had been hacked straight from the earth.

  A tomb, she thought. A coffin.

  “More than a year ago there was a major earthquake in Chengdu,” said Serena softly, as on the screen she and several other men pushed and pulled at a flat slab of stone resting atop the carved mound. “I think you might have heard about it.”

  Almost seventy thousand people had died. Soria had heard a great deal about the earthquake from her hospital bed in San Francisco. Cartoons, soap operas, and death had been her televised companions. She’d had her friends there, too, and family. But not Roland. Hardly even a phone call.

  “The ground opened in the mountains,” Serena continued. “Some locals found artifacts. When our archaeologists went in, they discovered a great deal more than that.”

  Soria gave her a sharp look. “Your archaeologists?”

  Serena’s mouth tilted coldly. “You would think, given the diversity of your agency, that there would be more interest in relics of the past, in the reality behind myths and legends. Instead, you people focus on small things.”