Илона Эндрюс - Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy)

Alessandro nodded. “True.”

“But if you’re a powerful animator, you can animate the wire. She had twenty minutes in the Pit. She disabled the security cameras, which meant she planned to kill him. She lured him to the spot on the walkway and the wire reached down and snapped around his neck, jerking him straight up. His neck was broken instantly.”

“It fits,” he said.

“Your turn.”

“She is afraid,” Alessandro said.

“What makes you think that?”

“I read her file. Your cousin is disturbingly thorough in his background checks. Cheryl has had no relationships after the death of her husband. Her life is split between her children and work. If she was ever involved with anyone, she must’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the relationship private. This is a woman extremely conscious of her image. A woman like that wouldn’t respond to blatant interest from someone like me. She would find it inappropriate.”

“But she did.”

He nodded. “She smiled, nodded, and agreed with everything I said, even when it was utter nonsense.”

“I was wondering about the cost-benefit silliness you threw at her.”

“It’s out of character for her to respond to me. It means her position is so vulnerable that she is scrambling for any allies. She thinks I’m pretty and stupid, and therefore easily manipulated. She appealed to my fragile ego to get me on her side.”

I squinted at him. “Your ego would survive an apocalypse.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“It was to me.”

A flash of the old Alessandro, here one second and gone the next, so quick I might have imagined it.

“Why did you stop on the way out?” he asked.

“A hunch. People who throw around words like legacy worry me, so I wanted to see Cheryl’s accomplishments. That room is full of giants, and I don’t mean constructs. There are no I’s on Cheryl’s constructs.”

“I don’t follow.”

“When one of the Castellanos invents something new, they mark it with a Roman numeral I. Digger I, Crawler I, Blossom I.”

His eyes narrowed. “Cheryl’s constructs all have high numbers. She hasn’t invented anything new. She just refined what came before her.”

“I think so. The Kraken would have been her first attempt at an original construct. I wonder to what lengths she went to make it.”

Alessandro pondered it. It was a disturbing thought. I would need to speak to Regina. Patricia’s wife was an upper-level Significant animator. Maybe she could tell me more.

“So, what did you do to Rahul?” Alessandro asked. “I didn’t see the wings.”

“Neither did he.” How did I know he would get around to that? “I don’t always need the wings. I can do it with my voice. Sometimes I can do it with my magic alone. Seeing the wings is a privilege, Alessandro.”

“Is it?”

I couldn’t help myself. “Even Albert hasn’t seen the wings.”

“Out of curiosity, what exactly has he seen, Catalina?”

I smiled. “None of your business.”

“I’ll just have to ask Albert myself.”

“You will leave Albert alone.”

The look he gave me was pure predator. I fought the urge to freeze. It was like crouching in the middle of the woods to take a drink from a stream, raising your head, and realizing a jaguar was staring at you from among the branches.

“You don’t have the right to be jealous.”

“I’m very aware of my rights,” he said. “I would never presume to tell you who you can love. But I will protect you, Catalina. If he intends to pressure your family, he will regret it.”

“If he pressures my family, I’ll take him apart. I don’t need your help.”

“You will get it anyway.”

Arguing with him was like pouring oil on a fire.

Oh. A half-forgotten thought popped up. “When you magic a weapon into your hands, can you tell where the original is located?”

Six months ago, he wouldn’t have given me an answer. I waited . . .

“Not the exact location or distance, but I can usually determine the general direction,” he said.

“Do you remember when you roasted the tentacles that grabbed Marat with a flamethrower? Where did it come from?”

He thought about it, raised his left hand, and pointed to the left and slightly forward.

“Is that the absolute direction or relative to the way you were positioned?”

“Relative.”

He had been facing the swamp with the shore directly in front of us. There was nothing to the left of him, except muddy water.

“It was underwater,” he said.

“Yes.”

“She torched his legs and then tossed it into the Pit.”

“Yes. The Abyss must’ve grabbed him.”

“The Abyss?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what else to call it. Let’s say I’m Cheryl. I kill Felix and now he is dangling above the water like a delicious snack. The Abyss does exactly what it did today. It grasps his body, tries to pull it under, and partially succeeds, which accounts for the bruising on his face as well as the bite. Cheryl fights it with her wire, pulls Felix’s corpse out, but the Abyss is still holding on to his legs. Cheryl grabs a flamethrower—there might have been one there—torches the Abyss, and it lets go. Then she throws the flamethrower into the water. But why go through the trouble of saving the corpse?”

He wagged his eyebrows at me. “Would you like me to tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Corporate liability,” Alessandro said. “Without the body, Felix would be declared missing. Lander would mothball the entire project and comb the Pit looking for his son.”

And he would find the Abyss. I had a strong feeling Cheryl would avoid that at all costs.

“So here we are,” I said. “I know she did it. I can’t prove it. I don’t know if anyone helped her. I can’t take it to Linus, because I haven’t found the serum. I can’t take it to Lander either. I know exactly what he would say.”

“Kill that evil bitch,” Alessandro declared, perfectly imitating Lander’s voice.

I blinked at him. “Yes. We need more information. We need proof, so we’ll have to keep digging.”

Alessandro reached over and took my hand. His warm fingers squeezed mine.

Suddenly, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

“Promise me something.”

I had to say something back. “Depends on what it is.”

“Don’t go into the Pit without me. I think that thing is fixated on you. I don’t like it.”

“I promise.”

“What was it like?”

“Like looking into a nebula. Stars suspended in luminescent dust, each point of light an extension of a central consciousness. It was aware .”

“Could you kill its mind?”

“I wouldn’t know where to start. I don’t know if anyone would. It worries me.”

He rubbed his thumb on my hand and squeezed again. He wouldn’t say it, but I knew. It worried him too.

Alessandro delivered me to the house. I got out of the car and watched him get into his Spider and drive out. Then I made my way through security, parked Rhino in its designated spot, and got out. A drone passed above me, one of Patricia’s. I waved at it, took the canvas bag with the rings from the constructs out of the back, and walked past our building to a smaller structure.

Walking was rather difficult. I hadn’t realized just how much the antivenom, the fight, and the recharging took out of me. My face felt heavy, like I was wearing an iron mask. My hip and side ached. The thirty-second walk kicked my ass.

Before Connor purchased it, the squat ugly building that now served as the Tafts’ home housed a company selling mysterious “Texas Products.” It came as a bonus when we bought our current place for one dollar from Connor. We remodeled it, and now Patricia and Regina used the building as their temporary residence until all of us moved somewhere better.