Clearly, he’d had experience . . . in a lot of things.
“I am hungry, thank you,” Tallah said as she came forward. “But I feel like cooking.”
“Listen, I need to run out for second.” Sahvage put the teacup down on its saucer, and went over to the flak jacket he’d tossed over the arm of the sofa. “I’ll be right back. Just a quick errand.”
As Mae looked across at him, he shook his head like he was reading her mind and seeing the Again? that was all over it. “It’s not going to take long. I promise.”
“Oh, okay.”
He nodded, and then he was gone, dematerializing right in front of them. Which meant he was using that second-floor window again.
In his absence, Tallah smiled and patted her hair. “A male like that makes you feel young, doesn’t he?”
Where was he going? Mae thought.
She hid her flush and her worry by getting up from the table. “How can I help you with food?”
“Sit, sit, sit.” Tallah waved the offer away as she went to the stove. “I brought some meat up from the refrigerator downstairs. Let me make you and him a meal. It’s the least I can do for you.”
“Speaking of which, do you mind if we stay here today?”
Tallah’s eyes twinkled in a way Mae hadn’t seen for . . . years. “I would just love the company. How delightful!”
Okay, so here’s a moral quandary.
Nah, not really.
As Sahvage re-formed outside of a trailer with bullet holes in its cheap aluminum siding, he looked around at the crap-ass yard: Two pickup trucks off to the side, rusted parts of cars strewn around like the biopsies from junkers, a BBQ grill without a lid or a propane tank listing by a busted picnic table. The acreage was crowded with trees and vines, and as he thought of the cottage, he wished he were sticking around in Mae’s life. He liked the idea of getting a mower and clippers, tidying the place up, taking care of—
Jesus. One kiss and she’d turned him into a suburban househusband. Next up, beer cozies, football in the fall, and a dad bod.
Never gonna happen, he thought as he palmed one of his guns.
But what he could do for her? Was make sure she was safer.
There were three loose wooden steps that led up to a door that was probably the only solid thing on the property. Raising his fist to knock—
The scream of pain from inside was muffled. But it was clearly a woman’s, high-pitched and desperate.
And then, much, much louder: “You fucking whore! Where’s my fucking money—”
“I gave it to you! It’s right there—”
The slap was so loud, it rang in Sahvage’s ears. Annnnnnnnd he’d had enough of this.
Grabbing onto the knob, he ripped the door from its frame and led with the muzzle of his forty.
Over on a worn-out plaid couch, a hollow-eyed woman in faded blue jeans and a blood speckled t-shirt was trapped under the lanky body of a greasy meth-head Sahvage had known for all of two and a half weeks. Crumpled bills littered the threadbare cushions around them, and a three-foot-tall bong that was charred like a tailpipe had been kicked over to drool on the filthy, matted carpet.
As they both looked over at him in surprise, Sahvage leveled his gun at the man. “Let her go.”
To his absolute insanity, the misogynistic fucker recovered quickly. “Fuck off! What the fuck are you doing—”
“Dave,” Sahvage said in a reasonable tone, “let her go or I’m going to shoot you in the head.”
“This is not your fucking business.” Dave twisted the woman’s hand back until she whimpered. “And we did not have an appointment.”
“Like this is a dentist office?” Sahvage narrowed his eyes. “On three. You let her go, or I shoot you in the head. One.”
Dave wrenched around with a glare—while using his grip on the front of the woman’s throat to keep his balance. “You’re making a fucking mistake here—”
“Two.”
“You’re not going to shoot me.”
With a coordinated move—like he’d had to do it before—Dave lunged into the couch cushions for a gun.
“Three,” Sahvage said as he pulled his trigger first.
The discharge was a loud clap in the grungy confines, and then Dave’s rather limited IQ exploded out the back of his skull, speckling the wall behind him with blood and gray matter. The gun he’d gone for went off as the hand holding it contracted on an autonomic squeeze, but its muzzle had been on the swing around instead of in position—so the bullet just hit the cheap cabinets over the sink and rattled whatever dishes were in there.
The woman screamed again and pushed herself away from the collapsed body.
“Sorry about that,” Sahvage said grimly.
He didn’t have a chance to offer help. She swiped up the loose money, hooked a black pack on her arm, and dodged around the trash and debris to tear out of the trailer. A split second later, a muffler-less truck roared to life and threw up the loose gravel of the drive.
Sahvage exhaled and kept his gun out as he went over to the sofa and took the gun from the now-dead hand of his arms dealer. Then he went down to the bedroom. Kicking the door out of its hinges with his boot, he leveled his weapon at the six-by-nine-foot steel cabinet across the shallow space.
Two shots. Both of which ricocheted into the bed’s bald, stained mattress.
As the panels of the armory safe lolled open, he made quick work of stealing the guns that Dave had stolen from God only knew who. Which was the nah-not-really to the quandary of whether it was thievery to take things from a person who had lifted the shit themselves.
And oh, look. There was a duffle bag right over by a collection of pristine Nikes. Handy for transport.
Taking the bag and leaving the shoes, Sahvage filled his new piece of soft luggage with rifles, shotguns, and a nine millimeter for Mae. The ammo was in the bottom of the weapon wardrobe, and he took boxes of bullets.
He would have paid Dave for it eventually. He had $2,800 in cash back at the shithole he was camping out in, and one more fight with the Reverend would have covered the rest of the $5,000 or so he’d have been charged: He hadn’t come here intending to steal, more like borrow on layaway.
Shoot-away was more like it.
But good ol’ Dave didn’t have to worry about his black market business’s balance sheet anymore, so Sahvage was considering the debt discharged.
As he came back out, he stared at Dave—and took a minute to think about the nature of dead bodies. The next thing he knew, memories he had been trying to mentally outrun overtook him on a tackle that landed him smack back into the past.
• • •
Within the confined space of his coffin, Sahvage gathered his wits, marshaled his strength. There was the temptation to thrash and batter, yet he could sense naught of where he was. He smelled no dirt, and he took that to mean he had not been buried. Beyond that? He was sure of nothing.
No sounds gave him cues. No particular smells, either.
Other than the fresh cut of the wood planks that surrounded him.
There was no calming himself to dematerialize. No sufficient measure of self-control to be mustered as his heart thundered for all that had to be occurring for Rahvyn. Thus he fashioned his palms upon the lid’s underside, and with ever-increasing force, pushed, pushed, pushed—
The nails sang and squeaked, but yielded before the pressure, the lid lifting a crack, air entering, even as no light did. One deep breath suggested a location that made little sense, though as he could have been under six feet of earth, he would take the scents of flour and oats o’er raw dirt. And just as the lid popped free of its many moorings, he grabbed its edge so as to not make a clatter—
With a hiss, he bit his tongue to quell calling out as his hand was scored by the teeth of the nails. The smell of fresh blood sprang into his nose as his flesh wept, and he prayed that this food-storage area was free of drafts that would carry his scent unto the noses of others.
As he lifted his torso from its recline, he was of care with the lid, setting it aside silently—
Something fell from his chest. Beads? It sounded like marbles.
Feeling about, he encountered a wad that was damp and disturbing. His blood? Someone else’s?
He couldnae worry about that right the now.
Across whatever space he was in, there was a door . . . he could see the glowing outline created by its loose fit, and though the illumination did not carry far, it was a sufficient grounding whilst he stood up slowly.
Now Sahvage breathed more deeply, more evenly, and his sense of smell confirmed certain gastronomic basics: Again, the flour. Spices of some kind. Further grains.
A dry storage room. And there was such evident abundance that it could only be within Zxysis’s castle.
An unlikely venue for any coffin, but that gentlemale would need Sahvage’s to be kept hidden. As a member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, his remains would be considered sacred by his brothers, something to be reclaimed and promptly ahvenged. But herein, secreted amongst stores for the use of the aristocrat’s servants, of whom all were dependent upon the lord for his beneficence? The doggen would say not a thing and would ask no questions. Nor would anyone searching for aught of a coffin description think to look here.
As he went to step out of the casket, he discovered two further details: He had nothing on his feet, and a loose robing upon his body. A quick inspection of his form yielded no remarkable points of pain, the arrows having been removed at some point, whate’er damage done by them already healed. Pausing for a moment, he lifted his head and offered a quick prayer of gratitude unto the purebred Chosen from whom he had fed a mere three nights before.
Without her strength? He would surely have expired.
Turning unto the door frame, he resolved to find his cousin. And worried about how long he had been sleeping. Through the day? Through a day and a night?
There were crates and burlap bags in his way unto the exit, and he listed and lurched around them, attempting to keep both his balance and his silence in the darkness, in the unknown course of obstacles. When he came upon the hearty oak planks in their vertical alignment, he pressed an ear unto them and ceased his own breathing.
Naught upon the other side, that he could hear or scent.
As he cast a hand to the jamb, in search of latching, he prayed there was one on the interior—
When he found the metal pin and rod, he lifted the bolt with care and cracked the portal. Pale stone walls suggesting a hall, alit by torches. No sounds. No scents. Or at least none of either that alarmed his instincts.
Leaning out, he regarded the hallway in both directions. Then he glanced at the robing that covered him. Black feathers, matted with some kind of dampness, fell to his feet in a clump, along with some pebbles of some sort, and he had a whiff of something he could not place. Touching the front of the robing, he then brought forth his fingers. They were stained with something red. His blood. But what else—
As a whiff of astringent tingled his sinuses, he realized what had been done.
Zxysis and his guards had marked his body with magic, to keep that which was not a warlock—and was not in fact deceased—dead. No doubt so that they could prepare a hidden grave for him.
Their misguided determination of his status, on both of those levels, would have been laughable had they not had Rahvyn in their clutches.
Stepping out, Sahvage retrieved a torch from its iron seat upon the stone and went unto the right, following a faint trail of fresh air. As he padded along in his bare feet, he attempted to remember the castle’s layout. He had been within Zxysis’s seat of power for festivals from time to time, back before Rahvyn’s special nature had begun to assert itself. But he had never been down herein. What did it matter, however. He would find a weapon, even if he had to makeshift one, and he would locate his dearest cousin.
And then he would force her to leave this hamlet with him, even if he had to tie her to the saddle of his warhorse.