Page 59 of King Among the Dead

He hummed, and kissed her. “It should be.”

~*~

He scooped her up like a bride and carried her upstairs. When she made a reach for their clothes, scattered across the rug like windblown leaves, he hefted her up higher against his shoulder and said, “Nope. It can wait.”

“What’s Kay going to think?”

“She’ll be scandalized, naturally. Or pretend to be.” He caught her gaze and winked. “Don’t let her trick you into thinking she’s a prude. It would all be a lie.”

She smiled, and looped her arms around his neck. She was drowsy, now, her eyelids heavy.

This time, when they lay down on the crisp white sheets of his canopied bed, there was no space between them, her head pillowed on his chest, his arm secure around her waist. She fell asleep to the steady metronome of his heartbeat, and dreamed of nothing at all.

The next morning, she and Beck were chopping peppers and onions for a southwest omelet when Kay entered the kitchen, usual cigarette perched on her lip, expression her usual morning blend of tired and crabby. She climbed up onto her usual stool, smoked a moment, then finally said, “If you’re gonna fuck on the rug you could at least pick up after your damn selves.” Her lip curled in disgust.

Rose blushed, but Beck caught her eye and smiled. “How heathenish of us,” he said to Kay, his gaze sparkling, and Rose couldn’t find it in herself to feel too embarrassed.

SEVENTEEN

“Castor’s headquarters is virtually impenetrable,” Beck said, clicking through screens on the massive computer monitor in his study. “Another family tried to launch a full-scale siege of the place about ten years ago, and got wiped off the face of the earth for their troubles. Here it is.” He opened a JPEG file, one that expanded to fill the whole screen, and Rose let out a quiet “damn.”

She wasn’t looking at a house, but at a mansion. Its square, pale stone edifice was bracketed at each side by round turrets with steepled roofs. The roof above the main body of the house was lined with black iron spikes – of the sort used to keep pigeons from landing, but which she knew acted as human deterrents in this case. The dozens of original, leaded-glass windows had been caged with iron bars, and it lent the already-imposing Gothic manor an even more sinister air. Stone gargoyles perched on the ledges, snarling down at the lawn. The photo had been taken at night, but the house’s façade was lit up with security lights: nowhere to hide, no way to sneak in undetected.

He clicked the mouse, and the image shifted: a shot taken father back, this one showing the grounds. The mansion was in the heart of the city, flanked on either side by townhouses, but boasting a sizable lawn circled by a tall iron fence. The gates were massive, and decorated with curling iron Cs in their centers. Two men in black stood stationed just inside them, guns breaking up their otherwise-sleek outlines.

Beck pointed to one. “Castor employed plenty of meathead thugs to fence his product, but his own personal guard is made up of an elite death squad. All of them are fit, most are former military, and all of them are unfailingly loyal.

“Here are cameras.” He pointed them out on the tops of the stone fence posts. “Around the entire perimeter. And here, closer to the house. I’ve never been inside, but it’s apparently full of booby traps and dead ends. Secret passages and hidden elevators. Castor can disappear in a matter of moments, and then you have to deal with his death squad.”

“It’s like a haunted house in there,” Kay said with a shudder. “I was only there once or twice, but that was enough. “The bastard has an honest to God throne, right there in the front hall. It’s where he sits when they drag a traitor up in front of him.” She shuddered again, gaze far away, remembering.

Beck said, “I’ll never be able to get to him directly. Not in his fortress.” He tapped restless fingertips against the desk. “So I’ve been picking his people off. One by one.” He snorted. “I imagine I’m about as pesky as a buzzing fly.”

A frightening thought occurred. “Does he know it’s you? Taking out his dealers?”

Beck didn’t answer.

Kay said, “He’s careful. And Castor has lots of enemies.”

“Like I said: a buzzing fly.” With no small amount of bitterness.

“But the men who came here,” Rose persisted. She felt the urge to go check that the windows and doors were bolted.

He twisted around in his chair to face her, his smile small and tight – but nevertheless reassuring. She didn’t think he could hide anything from her now, and she relaxed beneath his gaze.

“If Castor knew it was me, and wanted me dead, he wouldn’t send those idiots to do the job. I feel sure they were acting on their own – trying to take some initiative in the hopes it would ingratiate them with the boss man.”

“That worked out well for them,” Kay said.

“If they’d told anyone what they’d planned, we would have had another visit by now.” He touched her arm. “It’s alright, darling. Castor doesn’t know.”

She let out a breath, and nodded.

His smile flickered wider, and he turned back to the screen. “I have a map.” He pulled it up, and now she knew what the little flags on it meant.

“You have a hit list, you mean,” Kay said.

“One always expanding,” he said, mildly. “It’s a good thing I’ve got a partner, now.”

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