Page 52 of Soothsayer

Chapter Twenty-Six

By the time we reached Roger’s plane, the last of my adrenaline had worn down to the point where the aggression was gone, mostly replaced by exhaustion. I had just…holy shit. I’d just blown up a car. Well,Ihadn’t blown up a car, but someone had blown up a car on my orders. It was a spiral of flame and hate and violence, and I’d fed right into it, and yeah, that wasn’t really my fault, but it still didn’t make me feel good.

My mother was about the most nonviolent person I’d ever met. The only time she’d hurt someone that I knew of was when she came for me after I got snatched as a kid. Even then she’d only hurt them indirectly, with her beater of a car doing most of the work. The sight of blood made her feel faint, and she was as close to vegan as you could get without giving up eggs.

I didn’t know if it was circumstance or inherited traits from the father I’d never met, but while I had way more of a taste for mayhem than Mom, even I knew I was going to be bumping up against my limits soon. The dice had been cast, the wheelwas turning, and I didn’t know what the end result was going to be. My vision had never been so blurred before—every new decision coming with consequences I couldn’t suss out, because I’d dragged everyone I knew into the maelstrom with me.

What I wouldn’t have given to be making my living as a fucking fortune teller right now. I stared out the reinforced window of the armored car and wondered where the hell Marisol had gotten to. She’d known this was coming—she’d known this was going to happen. Not the specifics, but she’d known, and she’d gotten herself the hell out of Dodge.

I was so grateful she’d told me. One less thing for me to worry about, and I had enough to keep myself occupied thinking about Sören and his relentless family, what I was going to have to do in Chicago to free Sören from his father, and what I was going to do about the sacrifice… Time was running short, but all I could think about was Marisol’s shop and the apartment in the back, Tavo’s room that had become mine, and how maybe if I hadn’t run off with one of Marisol’s little bronze Buddhas, the protection spell woven in them might have held off the Egilssons.

I absently riffled through the bottom of the duffel bag at my feet, fingers searching until they found—yep. Still had it. I picked the Buddha figurine out and weighed it in my hand, measuring out the cost of people’s lives against it: the loss of a home, a job, a future. Gauzy curtains and claw-foot bathtubs, shelves filled with tchotchkes and spiritual ephemera and the air full of the spicy scent of rice and beans, or the sweetness of coffee and pancakes. The closest thing I’d had to a home, burned to a shell. My hand squeezed tight around the figurine.

“It’s a pretty favor,” Sören said from his place next to me.

“Hmm?”

“The talisman. The favor is well-woven into it. You could have used it earlier, you know. It would have eased your path.”

I didn’t know what he was referring to. “What favor?”

“The protection within it. The power is small, but very targeted.”

“Is it?” I looked at the Buddha a little more appreciatively. I knew Marisol had bitched about me ruining her protection scheme, but I hadn’t imagined that I’d brought a little bit of it with me. I put the bronze in my pocket.

“Our time is drawing down.”

“I know,” I murmured.

“You spoke very well to Jakob, but words will not save you from Ólafur. You need to have a plan.”

“I’m working on that.”

“Cillian…”

“Why do you care?” I snapped. “The more I think about it, the more it seems like all you’re after is the fight. You want to be the center of attention, and our conflict makes you happy, doesn’t it? Isn’t this exactly what you want?”

“I do want to be desired,” Sören said. “I want to belong to the strongest, for that will better safeguard my own existence. But that doesn’t mean there are no preferences involved. And the moreIthink about it, the more I know that I, and Sören, would be happier with you. You let me do things like drive cars and go to amusement parks and eat at Denny’s. I like all of these things very much, and Sören would be devastated if you died. I might have to keep him asleep if it happens, and that would be very lonely for me.”

Lonely. Yeah. Fuck, I felt tired. I wanted to take what the landvættir was saying the way he meant it, with all the earnestness something that wasn’t human could probably have in this situation. As it was, I was fighting not to be resentful. Only the reminder of Sören inside of this creature, and how he felt about things, kept me from snapping something now.

“Well, that’s something.”

Sören looked like he wanted to say more, but we were arriving at the airfield now. It was small, with a little tower and hangar beside a single runway. There were only two planes visible, in fact?one a luxurious-looking private jet, the other a bulky cargo plane with an open back hatch and a few people milling around outside of it. One of them was a woman with what I’d call “Texas hair,” teased big and dyed blonde, wearing a teal pantsuit and toting a pair of pink gun holsters. She was…adorably scary, if that was even a thing. She smiled widely as we drove up and got out.

“Honeybun! Well, that was quick, huh?”

Roger walked right over to her, a matching grin on his face. “Hey, darlin’!” They kissed loud and smackingly, and the well-armed people around them—two of them were women, actually, and they were just as competent-looking as the men—all smiled from the secondhand cuteness. “Yeah, no problems. I love those little microgrenades, by the way, real convenient when you want to do some very targeted damage.”

“Aren’t they lovely?” she purred. “I’ve got an order in for another couple thousand. I reckon they’ll be real useful in urban combat situations. Now, who’s the friend you had to rush out here and save?”

“Ah, right. Cillian!” He beckoned me over, and I came, feeling a little bit like a kid being introduced to a new teacher. “Annie, this is Cillian Kelly. He’s the lucky charm I told you about. Made me a lot of money and kept me from being shot to hell not too long ago.”

She rolled her eyes at her husband. “That’s what you get for gambling when you should be doing somethin’ safe, like drinkin’.”

“In my defense, I was doing both.”

“Oh, I bet you were.” She turned and held a tiny hand out to me. “Lovely to meet you! I’m Annabelle Vandermoor, but my friends call me Annie.”

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