I wondered just how long they’d been waiting for me to leave the security of HQ. The ambush must have taken some planning. Did they set it in motion as soon as I was spotted this afternoon? How did they know I’d still be out at twilight?
Did it really matter at this point? No. All that mattered was that it had worked, and I was caught.
We entered the rings of warehouses, factories and businesses in the central area of the Citadel. Looping around to the alley behind a sprawling structure, the lamplighters led me inside. Before I stepped over the threshold, I dropped my last two bobby pins. Piles of crates littered the floor, and we wove around them before stopping at a set of stairs that disappeared down to the dark basement.
One of the group found a lantern and lit it. A skittery prickle coated my skin as we descended. My imagination conjured up visions of a dank cell and being tortured. I slowed. Hands grabbed my arms and pulled me along. At the bottom of the steps was a narrow hallway, and at the end was another door. My insides turned to goo and I braced for the horrors that waited for me within.
5
VALEK
“That’s it?” Onora asked, sounding disappointed. “Thought I’d get to see a show. You versus The Mosquito on a rooftop venue.”
Valek gestured with his bloody dagger to the four prone forms around her bare feet. “Thanks for the help.”
She shrugged. “Trapping you in a null shield wasn’t fair.”
“Are they dead?”
“No.”
“The Commander send you?”
“Yup.” Onora studied Valek without emotion. She had pulled her long brown hair into a bun on top of her head. “But you knew that already.”
“It never hurts to pretend ignorance.”
“Or to have people underestimate you.”
“Yup.” Valek wondered if that was a hint about her true abilities. He’d expected her to ambush him, not square off against him in a fair fight. That meant she was either crazy, brave or very confident. He’d put his money on confidence.
Onora stepped over The Mosquito’s sleeping goons. When she was within six feet, she pulled her daggers. Valek excelled at knife fighting, but Onora had been trained by the same teacher—and she was about twenty years younger than him.
He met her gaze. “Stay in Sitia with us. We need you.”
There was a split-second flash of hesitation in her gray eyes, and then it was gone. “I gave my loyalty to the Commander. I don’t go back on my word.”
“The Commander is not the same man I pledged my loyalty to. Even you have to admit he’s changed.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “You’re taking orders from Owen Moon now.”
“I thought only Janco talked this much before a fight.”
Valek shrugged. “Just trying to prevent an unnecessary death.”
“Keep it up, and I’m gonna die of boredom.”
Valek laughed. “Now who’s picking up habits from Janco?”
She pressed her lips together and slid into a fighting stance. He waited for her to make the first move. Good thing he didn’t blink, because when she came at him, he barely blocked her knives in time. His suspicions were correct—Onora had been hiding her skills.
This was going to be...interesting.
At five feet eight inches, Onora was four inches shorter than Valek, but she made up for her height disadvantage with speed and agility. Valek remained on the defensive as she shuffled in close, executed a flurry of strikes and danced back before he could counter. Then she switched tactics, circling him and coming in at an angle. Worry flickered in his chest.
“The Commander’s been training you,” he said.
“Yup.”
A brief stab of hurt and jealousy almost broke his concentration. While the Commander had always been willing to spar, he’d never offered to teach his fighting techniques to Valek.
Fire raced across his neck as her blade skimmed over the skin, snapping Valek back to the fight. He returned his full attention to Onora. But an impressive number of cuts peppered his arms and ribs by the time Valek had seen enough of her tactics to plan a counterattack. The next time she stepped forward, he also shuffled in close.
Valek launched an aggressive offensive of strikes with not only his blades but also his feet. His longer legs kept Onora at a distance.
She grinned at the new challenge. Grinned. Ah, hell.
He kept the pressure on her but knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain the pace for long. Already he sucked in breaths, while she appeared unfazed by the exertion. Real fear pumped through his heart.
He changed tactics again, this time trying all his tricks. He hooked her ankle and sent her to the ground. She rolled and regained her feet with ease. Valek poured on the speed and backed her toward the edge of the roof. She dodged and sidestepped.
Then he started fighting dirty. She growled, but countered. In a flash of understanding, Valek knew he wouldn’t win unless he used magic.
No.
With the last of his strength, he knocked the blades that had been aimed at the center of his chest, just wide enough to miss his vital organs—he hoped. Valek dropped his own weapons, shuffled in close and grabbed her wrists as she stabbed one blade into his shoulder and the other into his left hip.
Ignoring the explosion of pain, Valek fell back onto the roof, pulling her with him. He wrapped his legs around her torso and squeezed her to his chest. Onora struggled to free herself. He tightened his grip, making it difficult for her to breathe and proving that he’d won the bout. He didn’t want to squeeze the life out of her, but he’d do it to save his own life. Yelena and the baby needed him.
She stopped resisting. “I...wasn’t going...to...kill...you,” Onora gasped.
“Oh? You sure...looked like you...wanted to kill me,” he puffed. The pain and effort of the fight had caught up to him.
“I wanted...to...see if I...could beat...you.” She relaxed. “I can’t.”
Valek eased up on the pressure but didn’t let her go. “You came closer...than anyone. Only the Commander...has beaten me one-on-one.” He considered her earlier comment. “If you weren’t going to kill me...then what did you plan to do...when you had your knife at my throat?”
“Make you promise to come back to Ixia with me.”
Not what he was expecting. At all. He thought about it as his breath steadied. “The Commander is getting worse.”
“Yes. Obviously it’s due to Owen Moon, but I can’t do anything. Your corps won’t acknowledge me as their boss, so I’ve no help except Gerik. I swore to protect the Commander, so I thought if I let you live, you’d return with Ari and Janco and help me free the Commander.”
“You’d have to tell him you assassinated me.” He wondered if the Commander would be upset by the news. Probably not while under Owen’s influence.
“Yeah. Otherwise all Owen would have to do is use one of those shields, and you’d be skewered.”
He huffed in amusement at her use of another Janco term. The motion hurt like hell. “Like I am now.” Valek released his hold on her.
She extricated herself and sat up. “Sorry. I really didn’t expect that last move.”
He waved away her apology. “Desperate times...”
“Do you want me to...” She made a yanking motion.
“No.” Valek tried to sit up. Pain forced him back down. “Yes. I’ll need some bandages.” He could heal his wounds with magic, but not on top of a roof without Yelena nearby to give him instructions.
Onora picked up one of Valek’s knives. He tensed, but she crossed to The Mosquito’s goons and cut strips of cloth off their tunics. It would take a while for Valek to trust her. He’d won, but it had cost him. If they’d fought again, she’d win. Of that he had no doubt.
Returning with the band
ages, Onora set the knife aside. “Which one first?”
“Hip.” He braced for the pain as she wrapped a hand around the hilt. Even so, a gasp hissed between his clenched teeth as she yanked it free. Blood poured out.
She helped him staunch and bandage the wound. Then she moved to his shoulder, and he experienced a whole new kind of agony. He was too old for this shit. When she finished securing the bandage, Onora let him lean on her as he stood. A moment of dizziness spun the Citadel around him. When the world steadied, he realized the sun balanced on the edge of oblivion. They must have fought for half an hour, at least. No wonder he felt as if he’d been run over by a herd of horses.
Onora picked up his daggers with exaggerated slowness and handed them to him hilt first. Smart. He met her gaze as he tucked them away. Then she cleaned hers and slid them back into their hidden sheaths.
“Can you climb down?” she asked.
He walked to the edge and peered into the dark alley below. The descent was doable, but it was going to be torture. “Yes.”
“What about the bug and his people?”
“Leave them. His people will eventually wake and need to decide what to do with his body.” Speaking of deciding, Valek glanced at Onora. “What are you going to do now?”
“Go with you, if your offer is still good.”
“And if it isn’t?”
She didn’t blink. “I don’t know. I can’t go back to Ixia. Guess I’d have to find a job here.”
And he was sure Bruns would be happy to employ her. “My offer stands, but it’s going to take me a while to trust you again.”
Onora looked up in surprise. “Again? I thought you never trusted me.”
“That’s what you were supposed to think.”
Crossing her arms, she studied him. “So, to me, nothing’s changed.”
“Yup. Except when I do trust you, we’ll go rescue the Commander.”
She smiled, and it reached her eyes. It was that smile that convinced him she’d been telling the truth. However, he wasn’t going to let her know. No. He’d let her sweat it out for a while.
* * *
As expected, the climb to the alley was a test of his pain tolerance. Twice he clung to the wall and fought off unconsciousness as fire burned along his shoulders and ringed his waist. Thank fate the trip down didn’t take long. Onora waited for him below.
Once he recovered, he asked, “Do you know where we’ve been staying?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been in town?”
“A couple days.”
He cursed. “Fisk will need to relocate his headquarters.”
She agreed. “There are a number of assassins in town. I don’t know if that’s normal, but it’s a good thing they’re not the brightest.”
Small comfort. Valek told her about the bounty.
“Yelena needs to leave the Citadel,” Onora said, alarmed. “The city is contained by an unclimbable wall and has only so many hiding places. Even those idiots will find her eventually.”
He barked a laugh that turned into a hiss. “I tried logic.”
“Try again.”
He admired her optimism. She followed him as he crossed the Citadel, staying in the shadows. Her passage was soundless, and when he glanced back at her, her skin and clothing appeared darker, as if she was turning into a shadow. Valek remembered Janco commenting on how well Little Miss Assassin blended in with her surroundings. Janco hadn’t detected magic, but he didn’t always pick up on the more subtle users, like Reema. It was a bad time to open his magical senses so Valek added it to the list of things he still needed to discover about Onora.
When they reached the secret entrance to Fisk’s HQ, Valek said, “Here’s the story. My injuries are due to a fight with The Mosquito. He used magic and, if you hadn’t come along to help, I’d be dead. Oh, and you had no intention of carrying out the Commander’s order to assassinate me.”
“Except for the fight with the bug, it’s true. Why the change?”
“You tell me.”
It didn’t take her long. “You don’t want Yelena to be mad at me.” Her brow crinkled. “Why?”
He waited.
Onora shook her head, truly puzzled.
“Because she considers you a friend. Yelena doesn’t have many friends. And none who have also been—” there really was no way to say this gently “—raped. You share that in common, and it forges a bond. I don’t want to ruin that for her...or you.” He sensed she needed it more than his wife.
“Thanks.”
He nodded and tapped the code on the door. Hilly opened it. Her gaze slid to Onora.
“This is Onora. She’s going to be staying with us.”
She stepped aside, letting them in. Hilly took one look at his bloody tunic and said, “I’ll fetch Chale.”
“Thanks. Can you tell Yelena I’m back?”
Hilly paused and turned around. Her tight expression warned him before the words left her mouth. “She’s not here.”
He stilled as a number of emotions fought for dominance. Fury rose to the surface, but his battered body couldn’t produce the energy to sustain it. Instead, a tired anger laced his voice. “Where is she?”
“She’s with Fisk, two bodyguards, Tweet and a four-person surveillance team. They’re wearing disguises. She’s fine.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“They went to check a glass roof in this quadrant. They should be back any minute—”
“Not helping.”
“I don’t know.”
Valek tightened his grip on his knives. He hadn’t realized he’d drawn them.
“I’ll go,” Onora said.
“No. She knows the Commander sent you. We’ll go together.”
“Renée! Innis!” Hilly called into the kitchen behind her. “Report for backup.”
“We don’t—” Valek tried.
“They know all the problem spots. And they can fight.”
Two teens raced into the room. Both were about sixteen years old. Renée was a sturdy-looking girl with pale skin and red hair, but Innis looked like a stiff wind could blow him over. Nonetheless, their determined expressions warned him that arguing would involve too much energy. And he needed every ounce to find Yelena. They tucked daggers into hidden sheaths. Valek figured he’d ditch them if they couldn’t keep up.
Without a word, he strode to the door and headed out. It took another minute for his brain to catch up with his body. He had no plan, and therefore no direction and no way of finding Yelena. Valek stopped and sorted through the limited information. Hilly mentioned a roof. A rudimentary plan formed.
“I need to get onto a roof, or the highest point in this quadrant, without scaling a wall. Can you get me there?”
Renée and Innis exchanged a glance.
“Penny’s Arch?” Renée asked.
Innis nodded. “Safest bet.”
“This way,” Renée said before taking off with a ground-eating stride.
Valek, Onora and Innis followed. After ten minutes, he hoped the teens wouldn’t ditch him. At least the effort to maintain the pace kept his mind occupied. His injuries throbbed with pain, and he didn’t have any spare energy to conjure up various dire scenarios for his missing wife.
The street lamps emitted enough light for them to skirt security patrols, avoid busy intersections and cut through an impressive number of alleys. Then it turned tricky.
Renée scrambled up a dilapidated shed and crossed a high fence to get onto the roof that was connected to a row of houses. Innis accomplished it with equal ease. Valek sweated as he climbed and almost lost his balance on the fence. Onora touched his elbow to steady him.
Once on the roof, they stayed on the top of the buildings, win
ding through the quadrant. The place resembled a maze, and Valek didn’t have the strength to track their location.
Penny’s Arch turned out to be a thick walkway between two buildings. It arched high up in the middle, as if the structures had shuffled closer together and bowed it.
Valek scanned the area, noting the brief patterns of the original structures that emerged from the unorganized mess. He didn’t know what he’d expected—a giant hand pointing to a specific section? Maybe if he used magic...
Valek lowered his mental barrier and was immediately assaulted with the thoughts of the thousands of people all around him. He raised his shield again, cursing. The entire endeavor had been a waste of precious time.
About to ask Renée to lead them back to HQ, Valek noticed that one area was darker than the others, but there was a bright glow right next to it. As if all the lanterns had decided to huddle together instead of spreading out.
Assassins were creatures of night and shadows, and if they’d set up an ambush, it would be in the darkest part of the city. And if there wasn’t a naturally dark spot, then they wouldn’t hesitate to create one.
“Renée, can you get us where it’s dark?” Valek asked, pointing to the spot.
“Yes. It’s near the entrance. There are two routes. Which one?”
“The fastest one.”
“There’s a wall.”
“Up or down?”
“Down.”
“I can handle it. Let’s go.”
Another race through the city. More pain and the conviction that his arm was about to rip from his shoulder. The trip blurred into one test of endurance. He kept his gaze trained on Renée’s back, concentrating on the next step.
Shouts pierced his fog. Two more of Fisk’s guild members joined them. Their mouths moved, but it took him a moment to decipher their words. And when he did, they made no sense.
“Slow down. What’s this about sweepers and lamplighters attacking?” he asked.