Using her phantom power, Marian snuck them out of the hotel at the break of dawn. They left most of their stuff in the room, save for her laptop, phone and all their necessary documents to leave the country. Bringing their passports, she decided, was being very optimistic.
No, that was negative thinking.
Their rental car sat in the same spot in the parking lot and there was no sign of a watcher. Maybe the police weren’t looking for them. Hah. More likely, it was Rasputin saying, “Come to mama.”
She stayed phantom, as planned. Richard took the wheel. She phased through to the back seat and only become solid when she was lying flat across it.
Their enemy couldn’t know she was with Richard. Everything depended on it.
She closed her eyes as Richard drove down the mountain’s winding road. Unexpectedly, her stomach grumbled. She smiled, remembering how Daz claimed eating a proper meal whenever possible was always smart when on duty. That lunch had been their last meal together.
She stopped smiling.
“Richard, I’ve made it clear that I can only stay phantom inside you for so long and that something may go wrong anyway. I’m pushing myself to the limit.”
“You’ve expressed doubts several times. I trust you. Now, just trust yourself.”
“Hah.” She wished for the right words again to tell Richard thank you, to tell him how glad she was they were trying to rescue Daz. Except now she was terrified she’d made the wrong call. What if fighting instead of doing what Rasputin wanted got all three of them killed, plus Richard’s Queen? She sighed.
“What?” he asked.
“This is my plan, I got you into it. What if it doesn’t work?”
“Richard Plantagenet, Prince of England, lets no one ‘get’ him into things. He gets into them all by himself.”
His face was reflected in the rearview mirror and she saw him smile. He was making fun, teasing her, to relax.
“Yes, sire,” she said.
“That’s better. We’ve chosen the opponent, the objective and the field of battle. No more room for nerves. That’s what my teacher, Marshal, would say.”
“I’d like to meet him some day. And your Queen too.”
“You will.”
In far too short a time, they parked at the farmhouse. She concentrated, went phantom and sat up to take a look around.
It was deserted, the same as yesterday, save that it had rained last night and the brown grasses were wet.
Richard zipped up his hoodie and pushed up the sleeves.
“Preparing for battle?”
“Preparing for victory.” He looked around. “They’re waiting inside, no doubt. Ready, Angel?”
“Ready.”
Once again, she became a phantom. This was the easy part. She sent up a silent prayer for the hard part and wafted from the car and inside Richard.
He shivered, only slightly. Oh, don’t do that, she thought.
“Interesting,” he said.
Interesting hardly covered it. It was chaos hiding in a living, breathing body. Blood zoomed here and there. Air went in and out. Tiny electrical impulses zinged her.
Yet she could hold this. She had to. If she lost it inside Richard, she’d cut him to pieces from the inside. She loosely molded her phantom self to the contours of his body. She could see because her eyes looked out from his.
Richard put his hoodie over his head against the wind, got out of the car and strode toward the farmhouse.
Vaguely, she heard the wind ruffle Richard’s sweatshirt. She thought of looking around but decided it was best to simply move with Richard, for as long as she could.
This time, the door to the farmhouse was unlocked. It opened to a kitchen empty of furniture.
“In here, Prince Richard.”
They walked past a stairwell that led to a basement and into the living room.
Rasputin, his cowl over his head, sat in the lone chair in the room, next to a great fireplace full of crackling, burning logs. A small army of monks framed their leader, their heads bowed.
Daz was on his knees in the middle of the room. His feet were bound and his hands were tied behind him. A monk had a sword to his neck. Dried blood covered a nasty scratch on his arm and a purpled bruise surrounded his left eye.
Daz! She fought the urge to run to him. For the plan to work, she needed to wait for the right moment.
“I brought him, as you wished. A gesture of trust,” Rasputin said.
“Release him,” Richard said.
“You cannot still hope to save the one who is your enemy?” Rasputin said.
Daz looked up at Richard. “So now I’m your enemy, Prince?”
“It seems the fates have decreed this to be,” Richard answered.
She wanted to yell at Daz that they were trying to save him, that he should praise Richard instead of insulting him. But how was Daz to know? She still had a kernel of doubt in her own mind.
Focus on staying hidden, she told herself, or things would get very messy.
“If you want the alliance with my court, you must tell me why you fear Alec Farley so much and why you refer to him as a fire demon. And having foreseen it is not an explanation, Monk.”
Rasputin stood, and Marian realized he was taller than Richard or anyone else in the room. Rasputin’s eyes were round, unblinking saucers that almost glowed under the darkness of the cowl. If she had been in regular form, she would have shivered.
Richard was a rock.
“I have foreseen that a fire demon in the West will destroy our faith,” Rasputin said in a voice that Marian thought was far too mild. “This world will go up in flames if he’s not stopped.”
“Have you always been right about the future, Gregori Rasputin?”
Rasputin nodded. “I see what may happen and work to prevent it for the good of all. If the czar had listened to me, his family would have lived and chaos could have been avoided.” He walked to stand next to Daz. “Here is the demon’s emissary who set out to destroy me. Is that not proof enough of my prophecy? He came to me.”
“I’m here because your people shot at me in New York,” Daz said. “Talk about your self-fulfilling prophecies.”
“Do not question our saint!” One of the monks standing next to the fireplace brandished a dagger.
“Fuck that,” Daz said.
Richard smiled.
Rasputin put his arm up, signaling to his acolyte to still. “Peace. Prince Richard will become a believer as soon as his Queen is healed.”
“And what assurances do I have that you will save her?” Richard asked.
“What assurances do you have that she will survive without my help?” Rasputin pushed down his cowl.
Not an improvement, Marian decided. His skin was sallow and his eyes seemed almost buried in the sockets. Stringy hair hung from his skull.
Richard stared Rasputin down. Marian realized he was trying to be as still as possible, so she could hold her phantom form as long as possible.
“You came to me because there were no other options,” Rasputin said.
“I came to find your DNA, not your living self.” Richard flexed his hand and made a fist. “I can still obtain DNA from your body once I kill you.”
“Posturing,” Rasputin said. “You are outnumbered and outclassed.” His voice lowered to a more friendly tone. “I understand your pride, Prince Richard, but you will see I was right in the end, once your Queen is healed and we destroy the fire demon together.”
Richard said nothing. Rasputin walked over and put his hand on Richard’s shoulder. It was all Marian could do not to flinch and reveal herself. Richard showed no sign of any emotion.
“It has been long since I made allies,” Rasputin said. “You may not realize this, but I’m glad to see you.”
“Says the spider to the fly.” Richard scowled.
Rasputin gestured, and two of the monks in the room leveled handguns at Richard. “Stubborn. Fine, here’s your test.” He snapped his fingers at the monk holding a sword to Daz’s neck. The monk handed the sword over to his leader.
Rasputin took Richard’s hand and placed it on the pommel of the sword.
Oh, hell.
“If you want your Queen healed, kill the fire demon’s follower. Else I will kill you and destroy the Queen in her New Orleans sickbed along with the rest of your people.”
“That’s a threat, not an offer of alliance.”
“Threats seem to be all that will work with you.”
Richard took the sword. He flexed his hand on the pommel.
“Attack me with that, and you and Montoya are both dead,” Rasputin said.
Richard, no, Marian thought. Maybe he’d been faking. Maybe he knew Rasputin would ask him about this. Maybe he’d planned to betray Daz all along.
No, she would not believe it. Stick to the plan. Wait until the last possible second to reveal herself. Trust me, Daz, she thought. Trust us.
Richard looked down at Daz. “You would do the same to save your people.”
Daz glared back. “Easy to say when you’re the one with the sword.”
“I hope that your ghost doesn’t haunt me.” Richard raised the sword to strike. “A phantom can do all manner of damage.”
Richard wasn’t talking to Daz. He was talking to her. She slid out of him and into Daz.
Rasputin blinked, as if he’d seen her.
“What was that?” he asked Richard.
“What was what? You have the foresight. You should be able to tell me,” Richard said.
Marian settled in Daz’s body. So far, so good. His heart was beating far faster, his blood pounding more than Richard’s had been, and there was a searing pain in his shoulder from something Rasputin had done to him. His internal maelstrom threatened to throw her off track. Just a few more seconds. She thought back to her ghost impersonation in the abbey. This had to be something like that, something to make even Rasputin question himself.
“Ugh.” Daz said, his voice thick. “Just get it over with, prince guy, before I lose my cookies on my shoes.”
Though Daz didn’t know she was there, he still felt her inside. She looked through Daz’s eyes at Richard and Rasputin. The monk focused only on his supposed ally. Richard glanced down one more time at Daz and brought the sword down on his neck.