“You have to know.” He coughed into his fist, which came away red and wet. “He told you everything. Tell me or I’ll crush your skull like an empty egg.”
“The emeralds are gone. It’s over.” She looked up at him, at the death blow he was prepared to deliver, and summoned an image of the last thing she wanted to see on this earth: Korvel smiling at her.
“You little bastard.”
Out of the corner of her eye Simone saw Neuf push himself up from the sand. He threw a dagger at Pájaro’s hand, piercing the palm and making him drop the cross.
“Never could fight fair.” That was Vingt, somewhere behind her, and Simone saw his blade bury itself in Pájaro’s crotch. “Fucking cowardly shit.”
As Pájaro dropped to the sand, clapping his hands to his groin and screeching, Cinq appeared beside the pit. Bullet holes riddled his shirt, and through them Simone caught a glimpse of the bullets lodged in the protective vest he wore underneath.
“Cinq.”
“I told you, little sister. We don’t take any chances.” He walked over to Pájaro, who lay in a ball, and reached down, grasping the front of his priest’s cassock as he pulled the blade out of his groin.
“I have to find the emeralds,” Pájaro groaned, and two teeth fell out of his mouth. “I am Helada. I have earned immortality.”
Cinq crouched down over him and said over his babbling, “You don’t even deserve this, you murdering scum.”
Through the shadowy green haze clouding her eyes Simone saw Cinq drive Vingt’s knife into Pájaro’s thigh, severing the femoral artery and causing a gush of blood to soak into the sand. As Vingt and Seize began to pull her out of the pit, Pájaro’s voice grew weak and then fell silent.
And then it was over, and she was free.
“Just like a girl to lie around on the beach while the men do all the work,” Vingt said as he supported her with one of his tattooed arms.
Seize gently touched her scalp. “Neuf, she’s bleeding a lot.”
The big German joined them and checked the wound. “She’ll need sutures for this. My bag is back at the house, but we should take her to hospital and have X-rays taken.”
“That won’t be necessary,” a deep, beloved voice said as a tall man walked toward them. “She has a hard head, or so I’ve been told.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Vingt demanded.
“Korvel.” Simone stumbled away from her brothers and into his arms, holding on to him with tight hands. “Oh, God. I never thought I’d see you again.” Her knees buckled. “I’m going to fall down now.”
“I think not.” He swung her up into his arms. “But perhaps you should tell your brothers who I am before they draw the wrong conclusions.”
Simone looked at Cinq. “This is Korvel. He’s the man I love. I haven’t told him that yet, but now he knows. Oh, and he calls me Simone.”
“Does he know you work in a convent?” Vingt asked.
The darkness crowding in on her was not like any she had ever known, and suddenly Simone understood what was happening to her.
“He knows.” Her eyelids wanted to close, but she refused to stop looking at him. “He’s taking me back to Ireland with him.”
“Tonight,” Korvel promised.
As Gabriel and Nicola appeared at the edge of the sand, Korvel regarded the oldest of the men, the one Simone had called Cinq. “My friends and I will take her back to the house. There are men moving in from the west. Can you deal with them?”
He nodded. “Neuf will meet you there. He’s a physician.” He picked up the cross. “What should we do with this thing?”
“I don’t care,” Korvel said. “Whatever you like. Toss it in the ocean.”
“No,” Nicola said, and walked down to the edge of the pit. “Bury it again. Bury it deep.”
Cinq nodded, and turned to speak to his men. Korvel carried Simone, who was drifting in and out of consciousness, up to the car, and held her as Nicola drove back to the house.
“Did either of you recognize the Kyn who turned us into spectators?” Nicola asked.
Gabriel exchanged a look with Korvel before he said, “It was not Kyn.”
She nodded. “Told you so, told you so. Now that we’ve established that I’m not losing it and that there is something out there that can get into our heads and control us, anyone want to guess what it is?”
“I have seen the high lord enrapture a thousand mortals using but a few words,” Korvel said. “Evidently this being can do the same to us with only a thought.”
“It reminded me of Richard as well,” Gabriel said. “The strangeness of his animal side. The nonhuman ways in which he behaves.”
Nicola nodded. “That’s it. Mortal or otherwise, that thing is not all human. Could it be some kind of severely fucked-up version of Richard?”
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “Captain, you have more experience with changed Kyn. What is your opinion?”
“If it is a changeling, it is unlike any I have ever encountered.” Korvel glanced down at the pale face of the woman in his arms. “Whatever it is, it wanted Simone to die. If I ever find it, I will end it.”
The big German with the goatee stood waiting for them at the door to the house, and led them into a sitting room. As Korvel gently placed Simone on a chaise longue by the windows, Nicola and Gabriel left to check the rest of the house.
Neuf opened the leather case he had carried in and took out pads, which he placed over the wound. “Hold these in place for me,” he said to Korvel. “Keep steady pressure; it will help slow the bleeding. How did you become involved with our sister?”
“I met her during a trip to France,” Korvel said. “I’m a businessman from England.”
“Then I am the new chancellor of Germany.” Neuf spared him a glance. “You move like one of us, but you are not. You are stronger, faster. That you smell like a pretty flower also troubles me, for obvious reasons.”
He suppressed a smile. “Most men don’t care for my cologne.”
“We are not most men,” the German said as he prepared a suture needle. “We are her garrison. And if that swine Derien sent you to meddle with her, I will introduce you to your entrails.”
That Neuf considered himself and his companions Simone’s garrison—a term rarely used by the modern world, even among its many militaries—puzzled Korvel. “I thought her father trained you and the others to serve him.”
“We took the oath he demanded, but it was to serve Quatorze. I often wondered why, until my final year of residency, when he came to me in Hamburg. He had me diagnose his blood disease. You can remove the pad now.” Neuf soaked some gauze with antiseptic and gently cleaned Simone’s wound. “Derien would never admit it, but he must have known he was unworthy. If he hadn’t, he would never have taken her from her mother, or used us to train her. He made sure that she never lost a battle, so that she would be judged worthy.”
“Worthy of what?” Korvel caressed her cheek. “Why did she come to this place? She wanted nothing from her father. She turned her back on everything he might have given her.”
“Not exactly.” Neuf began to sew the edges of the wound closed. “Derien knew that above all she wanted to live with the sisters. It was his way to dangle our heart’s desires as an incentive to get what he wanted out of us. She was no different.”
Korvel still didn’t understand. As the German tied off the last suture, he asked, “What did her father want from her? He must have known she would never become an assassin.”
“He wanted me to be Helada,” Simone murmured. Her eyes fluttered open and she shifted her gaze from Neuf to Korvel. “I agreed that when his death was discovered, I would come here and use the Trinity cross to become an immortal, so that I could spend the rest of eternity guarding it.” She sighed. “I promised my father that Helada would never die.”
“A cross cannot make you immortal, love,” Korvel said gently. “Much as I wish it could.”
Her lips curved. “You would want me to live forever?”
“You said I was the man you love,” he reminded her. “What I know is, I never want to be parted from you again.”
“Don’t say that. I’m mortal, and someday death will part us. When it does, you have to go on. You have to live for both of us.” She sounded desperate. “Promise me you will, Korvel.”
“I promise, love.”
She started to say something, but Neuf interrupted with, “You may badger him later, Quatorze. For now you must rest. I am going to give you something for the pain.” He took out a syringe, uncapping it and tapping the side with his finger before he prepared to inject her.
With a startlingly quick move, Simone seized his wrist. “No drugs, brother. Please.”
“Very well.” He put the needle aside.
She relaxed and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry I keep leaving you, Captain. I wish I could…”
“I’ll be right here when you wake up, my angel.” He kissed her brow, which felt cooler than his own flesh. “She needs a blanket.”
Neuf frowned and rested a palm on her forehead, and then checked her pulse. “Quatorze, why don’t you tell me about the convent. What were the sisters like?”
Simone didn’t respond, even when Neuf patted her cheek.
“Let her sleep,” Korvel suggested. “She is exhausted.”
“No, she’s not,” Neuf said. “Her body temperature is dropping and her pulse is weak. She’s going into shock.”
Nicola and Gabriel came into the sitting room, followed by a petite woman with her chestnut curls caught back in a ponytail.
“Okay, so I’m here. Where’s the patient?” Dr. Alexandra Keller stopped as soon as she saw Korvel. “Christ. You’re the reason Richard had me fly through the freaking Bermuda Triangle?”