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“Betrayer.”
I opened my eyes. No fucking way.
Seth stood up. “Harteij, don’t.”
I rolled over, and lo and behold, Heath—Harteij—was pushing up to his hands and knees. “You know him?”
Seth nodded. “We were friends back in the old country.” He rolled up his sleeves. “But that was a long time ago.”
Blood dripped from Heath’s nose and mouth, and slid down the precipice of his chin onto the floor. He wiped at it with the back of his hand, but that only made it worse, smearing across the rest of this face.
“Rasmaru,” he said, “you would choose the witch over your blood?”
Seth looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Ahem.” I waved a hand at the good doctor. “That would be me.”
“You’re a witch?” The pieces fell into place, and his expression changed to a knowing smile. “That explains a lot.”
I sat up to position myself between the crazed naga and my sister, and shrugged. “Yeah, usually does.”
Heath stood slowly and spat blood. “Adhiraj would be most displeased.”
Seth huffed. “Simon can kiss my scaly ass.”
Heath’s face scrunched up in frustration. “You haven’t changed at all, Rasmaru. Still stubborn and still backing the wrong cause.”
Seth stepped over Sera and stood beside me. He reached one hand down, and as graceful as I could manage, I grabbed it and got on my feet. “Humans aren’t cattle, Harteij. They’re not here to be manipulated by the likes of us. We don’t get to take their children or murder at will.”
Heath wobbled as he took a step toward us. “You broke my nose, you bitch.”
“I’m about to break the rest of your damn face.” I stepped toward him, but Seth tugged on my arm. “He tried to kill my sister—would have, had you not shown up. He kidnapped my niece, and we don’t know if she’s alive or dead. I’m within my right to take him down.”
“You’re not a murderer,” he whispered.
I shook my head. “No, but I protect my own.”
He tightened his grip. “You don’t come back from killing someone.”
“I know.”
“Let her go, Rasmaru,” Heath yelled. “Let me end her worthless life in front of your eyes.”
I pulled, but he shook his head and held on.
“She’ll finish you.” Seth didn’t take his eyes off me. “Of that, I have no doubt. Tell her where the babies are. Maybe she’ll spare you. Maybe the authorities will take the death penalty off the table. You’ll outlive your sentence, and you can start over.”
Heath growled in our direction. “I have no regrets, nothing to start over. My legacy is now. Let your little witch go. She wants a fight, and I want to give it to her.”
“No.” Seth stepped forward and tucked me behind him.
Heath smiled. “Get out of my way, old man.”
“No.” He turned his head toward me. “Do you trust me?”
I nodded.
“This is the only way to stop him.”
I exhaled slowly. “The only way?”
“I will get what you need from him first, but then he’ll be no more. It’ll be my doing, my hands, but you will get to come along for the ride.”
I nodded again. “Let’s get this bastard.”
He turned his attention back to Heath, who had covered a good four feet between us. “Last chance!”
The other naga hissed at him. “No chance. I’ll have her beating heart in my hand before we’re done.”
Seth shook his head. “Wrong choice.”
An electric tickle crawled up my back and took my breath away. I stumbled forward, my forehead and breasts pressed against the back of his shirt. I laid one hand on his shoulder, and that trickle surged throughout my whole body. I bit down into his back just under his shoulder blade and screamed, breaking fabric and skin until a gobbet of flesh stifled the sound. If he flinched, I didn’t feel it, and the wound was already healing. The unmistakable thrum of our combined power filled me and poured into Seth.
He glowed.
He raised his arms. “I may be old, Harteij, but I am stronger than you, and I don’t need to siphon life energy off a horde of humans. That’s cowardice for such a once noble naga. Simon has deceived you, keeping the real power for himself. He plays at king, and this one... she will take him down. Now, where are the babies?”
Heath grimaced. “I’m not telling you anything.”
Seth moved his hands, just as he’d done when he painted that picture for me, but instead of art, a glowing ball of electricity grew between his palms. “It’ll hurt less if you just tell me.”
The other man’s eyes widened. “Against your own flesh.”
The doctor flicked a section of the bauble at Heath. It zipped across the space between us, and despite Heath’s attempts to thwart it, entered his body through the middle of his forehead.
He screamed and clenched his head, falling to his knees.
“Where are the babies, Harteij?”
“I will not tell you!” Heath pounded his forehead into the concrete. He gave Seth the evil eye and spouted a nasty string of gibberish.
What the hell?
“Sanskrit. He’s speaking the old tongue,” Seth answered.
Wait, you can hear me?
The doctor chuckled. “We’re connected, your power and mine. It’s like... soul mingling. I’ll educate you later.”
Oh, fine.
Seth sent two more pieces of the electricity at the other naga. One sank into the middle of his chest. The other found his abdomen. The scales twitched and flickered before exploding in a bloody shower of debris.
Heath fell to the ground, arms over the gushing wound in his abdomen, writhing on the floor in pain. “When Adhiraj finds out what you have done,” he panted. “When he discovers the depth of your betrayal, he will make my anguish look like child’s play.” Hysterical laughter poured from his mouth along with so much blood.
Why isn’t he dead yet? I stepped forward to look.
“Uh, Zoë?”
I looked over my shoulder at Seth. Did I step right through you?
“You did.”
I can see me behind you. How is that possible?
“You’re walking in our power. Look at your hands.”
A great scientist once said that we are all made of stardust, and as I looked down at the exquisite layers of energy that clung to my form like so many diamond stars, I felt it to be true. I am energy.
Seth gave me a small, sad smile. “You are. Come back to your body, Zoë.”
No. I closed the space to Heath and knelt down to touch his face.
His eyes flew open and grew wider. “How did you? It’s not possible!”
I smiled. You have information I need.
His mouth moved, but it took him a second to respond. “Get out of my head.”
No. I was really beginning to like that word. You will give me what I want. Where is my niece?
“He’ll kill me!”
Do you believe the good doctor when he said that I am not a murderer? I shrugged. It’s true. I won’t kill you. There’s been enough blood spilt, but silly naga, there are things far worse than death. I slipped one sparkling finger through his left temple.
A strange noise escaped his lips, like sorrow and agony rolled into one singular sound that filled the immensity of the warehouse, and for the first time since we’d met, he feared me.
I pulled my finger out, covered in that gelatin memory goo. Where?
He let out a long, shuddering breath. “I can’t!”
I shrugged. Wrong answer.
Heath threw his hands up in front of his face, ss if that was going to stop me. “No, please!”
Tell me where my niece is.
In Wicca, everything you put out into the universe came back to you threefold, or three times as strong, in this lifetime. We didn’t have the luxury of waiting for judgment in the afterlife. So we, of course, encouraged positive energy out for positive energy returned, but I had found that there was a place for negative energy, too. It was all a matter of balance in the ‘verse.
Was I pushing my karmic allowance this week? Oh, my illicit activity was skirting that line rather tightly, but in my head, if I could find Esther in time, I would do my penance, take what was owed to me, and eat crow like a good little witch. No matter how painful it may be.
After all, I was torturing a living creature.
My fingertips glittered against the sweat on his forehead. I tapped one, two, three times, energy against flesh.
He screamed and tried to move away.
“No, I don’t think so,” Seth reprimanded from behind me. “Tell the lovely lady what she wants to know, Harteij, and it’ll be over. I’ll even speak to the authorities on your behalf. Don’t tell her, and... well, she’s rather a persistent and stubborn woman. The choice is yours, but I have to tell you, as a doctor, you’re not looking too good right now.”
Heath growled. “His reach is farther than yours. You cannot protect me. She cannot protect me. If I tell you, I am as good as dead. You know this to be true!”
Seth sighed. “If you do not tell her, there will be no looking over your shoulder. Her gift is strong. You can feel it. She won’t kill you on purpose, but how much more do you think your mind can take? We may think we are immortal, Harteij, but we are not. Tell her, and we will take care of Simon.”
Heath regarded us separately for a moment before replying, his voice soft, the hint of an accent a little stronger. He was giving up. “I cannot. You don’t know the monster Adhiraj has become. I burned the shell that was Aatmaj, gave him up just like he was a human, because Adhiraj had found out that the naga had made the witch’s acquaintance. He’ll be no happier that you’re involved now, and as strong as she is, I don’t know if she can defeat him. I cannot take that chance.”
“Then I cannot save you. We need the information you have. If you will not give it up willingly, she has no choice but to do her job.”
I didn’t mention I wasn’t even on the case anymore. No sense in bothering with semantics.
“Then so be it.” Heath lay down his head and closed his eyes.
I looked at Seth, who nodded slowly.
I knelt next to the naga and slid my hands along the curves of his jaw. Drop your shields and let me in.
